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GREETINGS AND WELCOME TO EVERY READER 

(kate sanborn) 



MEMORIES AND 
ANECDOTES 



BY 



KATE SANBORN 

AUTHOR OF 

' ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM," " ABANDONING AN 

ADOPTED FARM," " OLD-TIMB WALL PAPERS." ETC. 



WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

Zbc iRnfckerbocfter pxc66 

1915 






Copyright, 1915 

BY 

KATE SANBORN 



Ube mnfcfeerboc?!er press, IRew Korft 



MnV-41915 

©CI.A416229 



^0 
ALL MY FRIENDS EVERYWHERE 

ESPECIALLY TO MY BELOVED 

"new HAMPSHIRE DAUGHTERS" IN MASSACHUSETTS, 

MY PUPILS IN SMITH COLLEGE, 

ALSO AT PACKER INSTITUTE, BROOKLYN, 

AND ALL THOSE WHO HAD THE PATIENCE TO LISTEN TO MY 
LECTURES, 

WITH GRATEFUL REGARDS TO THOSE DARTMOUTH GRADUATES 

WHO, LIKING MY FATHER, WERE ALWAYS GIVING HIS 

AMBITIOUS DAUGHTER A HELPING HAND 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

My Early Days — Odd Characters in our Village — Dis- 
tinguished Visitors to Dartmouth — Two Story-Tellers 
of Hanover — A "Beacon Light" and a Master of 
Synonyms — A Day with Bryant in his Country Home 
— A Wedding Trip to the White Mountains in 1826 in 
"A One-Hoss Shay" — A Great Career which Began 
in a Country Store ...... i 

CHAPTER II 

A Friend at Andover, Mass. — Hezekiah Butterworth — A 
Few of my Own Folks — Professor Putnam of Dart- 
mouth — One Year at Packer Institute, Brooklyn — 
Beecher's Face in Prayer — The Poet Saxe as I Saw 
him — Offered the Use of a Rare Library — Miss Edna 
Dean Proctor — New Stories of Greeley — Experiences at 
St. Louis 39 

CHAPTER III 

Happy Days with Mrs. Botta — My Busy Life in New 
York — President Barnard of Columbia College — A Sur- 
prise from Bierstadt — Professor Doremus, a Universal 
Genius — Charles H. Webb, a truly funny " Funny 
Man" — Mrs. Esther Herman, a Modest Giver . . 75 

CHAPTER IV 

Three Years at Smith College — Appreciation of Its Founder 

— A Successful Lecture Tour — My Trip to Alaska , 115 



vi Contents 



CHAPTER V 

Frances E. Willard — ^Walt Whitman — Lady Henry Somerset 
— Mrs. Hannah Whitehall Smith — A Teetotaler for 
Ten Minutes — Olive Thorn Miller — Hearty Praise for 
Mrs, Lippincott (Grace Greenwood.) . . -141 

CHAPTER VI 

In and near Boston — Edward Everett Hale — Thomas 
Wentworth Higginson — Julia Ward Howe — Mary A. 
Livermore — A Day at the Concord School — Harriet 
G. Hosmer — "Dora Distria," our Illustrious Visitor 162 

CHAPTER VII 

Elected to be the First President of New Hampshire's 
Daughters in Massachusetts. Now Honorary Presi- 
dent—Kind Words which I Highly Value — ^Three, but 
not "of a Kind" — A Strictly Family Affair — Two 
Favorite Poems — Breezy Meadows. . . .179 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Greetings and Welcome to Every Reader 
(Kate Sanborn) . . . Frontispiece 



The Street Fronting the Sanborn Home 
AT Hanover, N. H. . 

Mrs. Anne C. Lynch Botta 

President Barnard of Columbia College 

Professor R. Ogden Doremus 

Sophia Smith 

Peter MacQueen 

Sam Walter Foss 

Pines and Silver Birches . 

Paddling in Chicken Brook 

The Island Which We Made 

Taka's Tea House at Lily Pond 



34 

78 

92 

98 

122 

182 

188 

202 

204 

206 

208 



viii Illustrations 

PAGE 

The Lookout ...... 210 ' 

The Switch . . . . . . 214 ■• 

How Vines Grow AT Breezy Meadows . 216 

Grand Elm (over Two Hundred Years Old) 218 



MEMORIES AND ANECDOTES 



Memories and Anecdotes 



CHAPTER I 

My Early Days — Odd Characters in our Village — Distinguished 
Visitors to Dartmouth — Two Story Tellers of Hanover — 
A " Beacon Light" and a Master of Synonyms — A Day with 
Bryant in his Country Home — A Wedding Trip to the White 
Mountains in 1826 in "A One Hoss Shay" — A Great Career 
which Began in a Country Store. 

I MAKE no excuse for publishing these memories. 
Realizing that I have been so fortunate as to know 
an unusual number of distinguished men and 
women, it gives me pleasure to share this privilege 
with others. 

One summer morning, "long, long ago," a 
newspaper was sent by my grandmother, Mrs. 
Ezekiel Webster, to a sister at Concord, New 
Hampshire, with this item of news pencilled on the 
margin : 

"Bom Thursday morning, July 11, 1839, 4.30 
A.M., a fine little girl, seven pounds." 

I was bom in my father's library, and first opened 



2 Memories and Anecdotes 

my eyes upon a scenic wall-paper depicting the Bay 
of Naples ; in fact I was bom just under Vesuvius — 
which may account for my occasional eruptions of 
temper and life-long interest in "Old Time Wall- 
papers." Later our house was expanded into a 
college dormitory and has been removed to another 
site, but Vesuvius is still smoking placidly in the 
old Hbrary. 

Mine was a shielded, happy childhood — an only 
child for six years — and family letters show that 
I was "always and for ever talking," asking ques- 
tions, making queer remarks, or allowing free 
play to a vivid imagination, which my parents 
thought it wise to restrain. Father felt called 
upon to write for a child's paper about Caty's 
Gold Fish, which were only minnows from Mink 
Brook. 

"Caty is sitting on the floor at my feet, chatter- 
ing as usual, and asking questions." I seem to 
remember my calling over the banister to an as- 
sembled family downstairs, "Muzzer, Muzzer, I 
dess I dot a fezer," or "Muzzer, come up, I'se dot 
a headache in my stomach." I certainly can re- 
call my intense admiration for Professor Ira Yoimg, 
our next door neighbour, and his snowy pow, which 
I called "pity wite fedders." 

As years rolled on, I fear I was pert and auda- 



Early Days 3 

cious. I once touched at supper a blazing hot 
teapot, which almost blistered my fingers, and I 
screamed with surprise and pain. Father ex- 
claimed, " Stop that noise, Caty. " I replied, "Put 
your fingers on that teapot — and don't kitikize. " 
And one evening about seven, my usual bedtime, 
I announced, "I'm going to sit up till eight tonight, 
and don't you 'spute. " I know of many children 
who have the same habit of questions and sharp 
retorts. One of my pets, after plying her mother 
with about forty questions, wound up with, 
"Mother, how does the devil's darning needle 
sleep? Does he lie down on a twig or hang, or 
how?" " I don't know, dear. " "Why, mother, 
it is surprising when you have lived so many years, 
that you know so little ! " 

Mr. Higginson told an absurd story of an inquisi- 
tive child and wearied mother in the cars passing 
the various Newtons, near Boston. At last the 
limit. " Ma, why do they call this West Newton?" 
" Oh, I suppose for fun." Silence for a few minutes, 
then, " Ma, what was the fun in calling it West 
Newton?" 

I began Latin at eight years — my first book a 
yellow paper primer. 

I was always interested in chickens, and dosed 
all the indisposed as: 



4 Memories and Anecdotes 

Dandy Dick 

Was very sick, 

I gave him red pepper 

And soon he was better. 

In spring, I remember the humming of our bees 
around the sawdust, and my craze for flower seeds 
and a garden of my own. 

Father had a phenomenal memory; he could 
recite in his classroom pages of Scott's novels, 
which he had not read since early youth. He 
had no intention of allowing my memory to grow 
flabby from lack of use. I often repeat a verse 
he asked me to commit to memory : 

In reading authors, when you find 

Bright passages that strike your mind, 

And which perhaps you may have reason 

To think on at another season ; 

Be not contented with the sight, 

But jot them down in black and white; 

Such respect is wisely shown 

As makes another's thought your own. 

Every day at the supper table I had to repeat 
some poetry or prose and on Sunday a hymn, some 
of which were rather depressing to a young person, 
as: 

Life is but a winter's day; 
A journey to the tomb. 



Early Days 5 

And the vivid description of "Dies Irae": 

When shrivelling like a parched scroll 
The flaming heavens together roll 
And louder yet and yet more dread 
Swells the high Trump that wakes the dead. 

Great attention was given to my lessons in 
elocution from the best instructors then known, 
and I had the privilege of studying with William 
Russell, one of the first exponents of that art. 
I can still hear his advice: "Full on the vowels; 
dwell on the consonants, especially at the close 
of sentences; keep voice strong for the close of 
an important sentence or paragraph." Next, I 
took lessons from Professor Mark Bailey of Yale 
College ; and then in Boston in the classes of Pro- 
fessor Lewis B. Monroe, — a most interesting, prac- 
tical teacher of distinctness, expression, and the 
way to direct one's voice to this or that part of a 
hall. I was given the opportunity also of hearing 
an occasional lecture by Graham Bell. Later, I 
used to read aloud to father for four or five hours 
daily — grand practice — such important books as 
Lecky's Rationalism, Buckle's Averages, Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton's Metaphysics (not one word of 
which could I understand) , Huxley, Tyndall, Dar- 
win, and Spencer, till my head was almost too 
full of that day's "New Thought." 



6 Memories and Anecdotes 

Judge Salmon P. Chase once warned me, when 
going downstairs to a dinner party at Edgewood, 
"For God's sake, Kate, don't quote the Atlantic 
Monthly tonight!" I realized then what a bore 
I had been. 

What a treat to listen to William M. Evarts chat- 
ting with Judge Chase ! One evening he affected 
deep depression. "I have just been beaten twice 
at * High Low Jack ' by Ben the learned pig. I 
always wondered why two pipes in liquid measure 
were called a hogshead; now I know; it was on 
account of their great capacity." He also told 
of the donkey's loneliness in his absence, as re- 
ported by his little daughter. 

I gave my first series of talks at Tilden Seminary 
at West Lebanon, New Hampshire, only a few 
miles from Hanover. President Asa D. Smith of 
Dartmouth came to hear two of them, and after 
I had given the whole series from Chaucer to 
Bums, he took them to Appleton & Company, 
the New York publishers, who were relatives of 
his, and surprised me by having them printed. 

I give an imasked-for opinion by John G, 
Whittier: 

I spent a pleasant hour last evening over the charm- 
ing little volume, Home Pictures of English Poets, 
which thou wast kind enough to send me, and which 



Resting under Difficulties 



I hope is having a wide circulation as it deserves. Its 
analysis of character and estimate of literary merit 
strike me as in the main correct. Its racy, colloquial 
style, enlivened by anecdote and citation, makes it 
anything but a dull book. It seems to me admirably 
adapted to supply a want in hearth and home. 

I lectured next in various towns in New Hamp- 
shire and Vermont; as St. Johnsbury, where I was 
invited by Governor Fairbanks; Bath, New Hamp- 
shire, asked by Mrs. Johnson, a well-known writer 
on flowers and horticulture, a very entertaining 
woman. At one town in Vermont I lectured at 
the large academy there — not much opportunity 
for rest in such a building. My room was just off 
the music room where duets were being executed, 
and a little further on girls were taking singing 
lessons, while a noisy little clock-ette on my 
bureau zigzagged out the rapid ticks. At the 
evening meal I was expected to be agreeable, also 
after the lecture to meet and entertain a few friends. 
When I at last retired that blatant clock made me 
so nervous that I placed it at first in the bureau 
drawer, where it sounded if possible louder than 
ever. Then I rose and put it way back in a closet ; 
no hope; at last I partially dressed and carried it 
the full length of the long hall, and laid it down to 
sleep on its side. And I think that depressed it. 



8 Memories and Anecdotes 

In the morning, a hasty breakfast, because a dozen 
or more girls were waiting at the door to ask me to 
write a "tasty sentiment" before I left, in their 
autograph albums, with my autograph of course, 
and "something of your own preferred, but at 
any rate characteristic. " 

My trips to those various towns taught me to be 
more humble, and to admire the women I met, dis- 
covering how seriously they had studied, and how 
they made use of every opportunity. I remember 
Somersworth, New Hampshire, and Burlmgton, 
Vermont. I lectured twice at the Insane Asylum 
at Concord, New Hampshire, invited by Dr. 
Bancroft. After giving my "newspaper wits" 
a former governor of Vermont came up to shake 
hands with me, saying frankly, "Miss Sanborn, 
your lecture was just about right for us lunatics." 
A former resident of Hanover, in a closed cell, 
greeted me the next morning as I passed, with a 
torrent of abuse, profanity, and obscenity. She 
too evidently disliked my lecture. Had an audi- 
ence of lunatics also at the McLean Insane Asylum, 
Dr. Coles, Superintendent. 

I think I was the first woman ever invited to 
make an address to farmers on farming. I spoke 
at Tilton, New Hampshire, to more than three 
hundred men about woman's day on the farm. 



Experiences as a Nurse 9 

Insinuated that women need a few days off the 
farm. Said a good many other things that were 
not applauded. Farmers seemed to know nothing 
of the advantages of co-operation, and that they 
were as much slaves (to the middlemen) as ever 
were the negroes in the South. They even tried 
to escape from me at the noise of a dog-fight out- 
side. I offered to provide a large room for social 
meetings, to stock it with books of the day, and 
to send them a lot of magazines and other reading. 
Not one ever made the slightest response. Now 
they have all and more than I suggested. 

When but seventeen, I was sent for to watch with 
Professor Shurtleff, really a dying man, and left 
all alone with him in the lower part of the house; 
he begged about 2 a.m. to be taken up and placed 
in a rocking-chair near the little open fire. The 
light was dim and the effect was very weird. His 
wig hung on one bedpost, he had lost one eye, 
and the patch worn over the empty eye socket had 
been left on the bureau. My anxiety was great 
lest he should slip from the chair and tip into the 
fire. I note this to mark the great change since 
that time. Neighbours are not now expected to 
care for the sick and dying, but trained nurses are 
always sought, and most of them are noble heroines 
in their profession. 



10 Memories and Anecdotes 

Once also I watched with a poor woman who was 
dying with cancer. I tried it for two nights, but 
the remark of her sister, as I left utterly worn out, 
"Some folks seem to get all their good things 
in this life," deterred me from attempting it 
again. 

Started a school a little later in the ell of our 
house for my friends among the Hanover children 
— forty-five scholars in all. Kept it going suc- 
cessfully for two years. 

I dislike to tell a story so incredible and so 
against myself as this. One evening father said, 
"I am going to my room early tonight, Katie; 
do not forget to lock the back door. " I sat read- 
ing until quite late, then retired. About 2.30 
A.M., I was startled to hear someone gently open 
that back door, then take off boots and begin to 
softly ascend the stairs, which stopped only the 
width of a narrow hall from my room. I have 
been told that I said in trembling tones, "You're 
trying to keep pretty quiet down there." Next 
moment I was at the head of the stairs ; saw a man 
whom I did not recognize on the last step but one. 
I struck a heavy blow on his chest, saying, "Go 
down, sir," and down he tumbled all the way, 
his boots clanking along by themselves. Then 
the door opened, my burglar disappeared, and I 



An Awful Mistake ii 

went down and locked the back door as I had 
promised father I would. I felt less proud of my 
physical prowess and real courage when my atten- 
tion was called to a full account of my assault in 
the college papers of the day. The young man was 
not rooming at our house, but coming into town 
quite late, planned to lodge with a friend there. 
He threw gravel at this young man's window in the 
third story to waken him, and failing thought at 
last he would try the door, and if not locked he 
would creep up, and disturb no one. But "Miss 
Sanborn knocked a man all the way downstairs" 
was duly announced. I then reaHzed my awful 
mistake, and didn't care to appear on the street 
for some time except in recitation hours. 

The second time I lectured in Burlington, I was 
delayed nearly half an hour at that dreadful 
Junction, about which place Professor Edward J. 
Phelps, afterwards Minister to England, wrote a 
fierce rhyme to relieve his rage at being compelled 
to waste so much precious time there. I recall 
only two revengeful lines: 

"I hope in hell his soul may dwell, 
Who first invented Essex Junction." 

Oh, yes, I do remember his idea that the cemetery 
near the station contained the bodies of many 



12 Memories and Anecdotes 

weary ones who had died just before help came and 
were shovelled over. 

It happened that Mrs. Underwood, wife of the 
demented governor, who had alluded so truthfully 
to my lecture, was in the audience, and being gifted 
^\4th genuine clairvoyant powers, she rose and 
begged the audience not to disperse, as she could 
distinctly see me pacing nervously up and down 
the platform at the Junction in a long sealsldn 
coat and hat trimmed \\4th band of fur. I arrived 
at last with the sealsldn and the hat, proving her 
correct, and they cheered her as well as myself. 

Our little \'illage had its share of eccentric char- 
acters, as the old man who was impelled by the 
edict of the Bible to cut off his right hand as it had 
"offended him." But lacking surgical facilities, 
the effort left one hand hanging limp and useless. 
His long white beard, how truty patriarchal ! 

Poor insane Sally Duget — a sad story! Her 
epitaph in our cemetery is pathetic. With all her 
woe she was quick at repartee. A man once asked 
her, "Shall 3'ou ever marry, Sally?" "Well, yes, 
if 5'ou and I can make a bargain. " 

Elder Bawker with his difficulties in loco- 
motion. 

Rogers, who carried the students' w^ashing home 
to his ^vife on Sunday afternoons for a preliminary 



Odd Characters 13 

soak. The minister seeing him thus engaged, 
stopped him, and inquired: 

"Where do you think you will go to if you so 
constantly desecrate the Holy Sabbath?" 

"Guess I'll go right on doing laundry work for 
the boys." 

The aged janitor who, in a brief scare about 
smallpox, was asked if he had ever had it: "No, 
but I've had chances. " 

An old sinner who, being converted, used to 
serve as a lay evangelist at the district schoolhouse 
where in winter religious meetings were held. 
Roguish lads to test him sprinkled red pepper, a 
lot of it, on the red hot stove. He almost suffo- 
cated, but burst out with: "By God, there's ene- 
mies to religion in this house! Hist the winders!" 

The rubicund butcher of that period (we had no 
choice) was asked by a long-time patron how he 
got such a red face. "Cider apple sass. " The 
same patron said, "You have served me pretty 
well, but cheated me a good deal. " " Yes, sir, but 
you have no idea how much I've cheated you. " 

Our one milliner, positively brilliant in her 
remarks, when a lady sent back her bonnet twice 
on the ground that it was not becoming, said, 
"Remember you have your face to contend 
with." 



14 Memories and Anecdotes 

Our only and original gravedigger, manager in 
general of village affairs. 

After the death of a physician, his wife gave 
a stained -glass window to the Episcopal Church 
of St. Luke, the beloved physician. She asked 
Jason if he liked it. He said, " It don't strike me 
as a particular speaking likeness of Dr. Tom, " 

To one of the new professors who ventured to 
make a few suggestions, "Who be yaou anyi\''ay?" 

He enjoyed buttonholing people he met in our 
"graveyard" and pointing out where they "must 
shortly lie." 

Our landlord — who that ever saw Horace Frary 
could forget him? If a mother came to Hanover 
to see her boy on the 2.30 p.m. train, no meal 
could be obtained. He would stand at the front 
door and explain, "Dinner is over long ago." 
He cared personally for about thirty oil lamps each 
day, trimmed the wicks with his fingers, and then 
wiped them on his trousers. Also did the carving 
standing at the table and cleaning the dull knife on 
the same right side — so the effect was startling. 
One day when he had been ill for a short time his 
wife said: "Dr. Dixi Crosby is coming this way 
now, I'll call him in." "Don't let him in now," 
he begged, "why d it, I'm sick!'' 

I must not omit the strictly veracious witness 



Odd Characters 15 

who was sworn to testify how many students were 
engaged in a noisy night frolic at Norwich. "As 
fur as I know, there was betwixt six and seven." 

"Webb Hall," who today would figure as a 
" down and out, " made many amusing statements. 
"By the way I look in these ragged clothes, you 
might take me for a Democrat, but I'm a red hot 
Republican." 

He was obsessed by the notion that he had some 
trouble with a judge in Concord, New Hampshire. 
He said fiercely, "I will buy two guns, go to Con- 
cord, kill Judge Stanton with one, and shoot my- 
self with the other, or else wait quietly till spring 
and see what will come of it." A possible pre- 
cursor of President Wilson's Mexican policy. 

He was accused by a woman of milking a cow 
in her pasture; pleaded guilty, but added, "I 
left a ten-cent piece on the fence. " 

An East Hanover man is remembered for his 
cheek in slyly picking lettuce or parsley in the 
gardens of the professors and then selling them at 
the back door to their wives. 

And a farmer from Vermont who used to sell 
tempting vegetables from his large farm. He was 
so friendly he cordially greeted the ladies who 
bought from him with a kiss. Grandmother 
evaded this attention by stating her age, and so 



i6 Memories and Anecdotes 

was unmolested. The names of his family were 
arranged in alphabetical order. "Hannah A., 
give Miss Kate another cup of coffee; Noah B., 
pass the butter; Emma C, guess you better hand 
round the riz biscuit. " 

Life then was a solemn business at Hanover. 
No dancing ; no cards ; no theatricals ; a yearly con- 
cert at commencement, and typhoid fever in the 
fall. On the Lord's Day some children were not 
allowed to read the Youth's Companion, or pluck 
a flower in the garden. But one old working 
woman rebelled. "I ain't going to have my 
daughter Frances brought up in no super- 
stitious tragedy." She was far in advance of her 
age. 

I have always delighted in college songs from 
good voices, whether sung when sitting on the old 
common fence (now gone) at the "sing out" at 
the close of the year, or merrily trolling or tra-la-la- 
ing along the streets. What a surprise when one 
glorious moonlight night which showed up the 
magnificent elms then arching the street before 
our house — the air was full of fragrance — I was 
suddenly aroused by several voices adjuring me, 
a lady of beauty, to awake. I was bewildered — ■ 
ecstatic. This singing was for me. I listened 
intently and heard the words of their song: 



Fickle Serenaders 17 

Sweet is the sound of lute and voice 
When borne across the water. 

Then two other sweets I could not quite catch, 
and the last lines sung with fervor : 

But sweeter still is the charming voice 
Of Professor Sanborn's daughter. 

Two more stanzas and each with the refrain : 

The prettiest girl on Hanover Plain is 
Professor Sanborn's daughter. 

Then the last verse : 

Hot is the sun whose golden rays 

Can reach from heaven to earth, 
And hot a tin pan newly scoured 

Placed on the blazing hearth, 
And hot a boy's ears boxed for doing 

That which he hadn't orter, 
But hotter still is the love I bear 

For Professor Sanborn's daughter. 

with chorus as before. 

I threw down lovely flowers and timidly thanked 
them. They applauded, sang a rollicking fare- 
well, and were gone. If I could have removed my 
heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone 
out too. They had gone, but the blissful memory ! 
I leaned on the window sill, and the moon with its 



1 8 Memories and Anecdotes 

bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But 
listen, hark! Only two doors beyond, the same 
voices, the same melodious tones, and alas, yes, 
the same words, every verse and the same chorus — • 
same masculine fervour — but somebody else's 
daughter. 

A breakfast comment: "It's a terrible nuisance 
this caterwauling in the middle of the night in 
front of the house!" For once I was silent. 

Many distinguished men were invited to Dart- 
mouth as orators at commencement or on special 
occasions, as Rufus Choate, Edward Everett, John 
G. Saxe, Wendell Phillips, Charles Dudley Warner, 
and Dr. Holmes, whom I knew in his Boston study, 
overlooking the water and the gulls. By the way, 
he looked so young when arriving at Hanover for 
a few lectures to the Medical School that he was 
asked if he had come to join the Freshman class. 

There were also Edwin P. Whipple, the essay- 
ist, and Walt Whitman, who was chosen one year 
for the commencement poet. He appeared on the 
platform wearing a flannel shirt, square-cut neck, 
disclosing a hirsute covering that would have 
done credit to a grizzly bear ; the rest of his attire 
all right. Joaquin Miller was another genius and 
original. 

Another visitor was James T. Fields of Boston, 



Distinguished Visitors 19 

the popular publisher, poet, author, lecturer, 
friend, and inimitable raconteur, who was always 
one of my best friends. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Fields were invited to Han- 
over, he and his beautiful wife were always guests 
at our home. Their first visit to us was an epoch 
for me. I worked hard the morning before they 
were to arrive, sweeping, dusting, polishing silver, 
and especially brightening the large, brass andirons 
in father's library. I usually scoured with rotten 
stone and oil, but on this great occasion, adopting 
a receipt which I had happened to see in a news- 
paper, I tried vinegar and powdered pumice-stone. 
The result at first was fine. 

I had barely time after all this to place flowers 
about the house and dress, and then to drive in our 
old carryall, with our older horse, to the station at 
Norwich, just across the Connecticut River, to 
meet the distinguished pair and escort them to our 
house. As I heard the train approaching, and the 
shrill whistle, I got nervous, and my hands trem- 
bled. How would they know me? And what had 
I better say? My aged and spavined horse was 
called by father "Rosinante" for Don Quixote's 
bony steed, also "Blind Guide" and "Heathen 
Philosopher." He looked it — and my shabby 
carryall! But the train was snorting for a stop. 



20 Memories and Anecdotes 

and the two guests soon came easily to my vehicle, 
and Mr. Fields seemed to know me. Both shook 
hands most cordially and were soon in the back 
seat, full of pleasant chat and the first exciting 
ordeal was over. At tea table Mr. and Mrs. 
Fields sat on either side of father, and the stories 
told were different from any I had ever heard. I 
found when the meal was over I had not taken a 
mouthful. Next we all went to the College Church 
for the lecture, and on coming home we had an 
evening lunch. All ate heartily but me. I ven- 
tured to tell one story, when Mr. Fields clapped 
his hands and said, " Delightful. " That was food 
to me ! I went to bed half starved, and only took 
enough breakfast to sustain life. Before they left 
I had written down and committed to memory 
every anecdote he had given. They have never 
been printed until now, and you may be sure they 
are just as my hero told them. My only grief 
was the appearance of my andirons. I invited 
our guests to the open fire with pride, and the brass 
was covered with black and green — not a gleam of 
shine. 

Often Mr. Fields's jokes were on himself — as the 
opinion of a man in the car seat just beyond him, 
as they happened to be passing Mr. Fields's resi- 
dence on the Massachusetts coast. The house was 



A Rare Story-Teller 21 

pointed out on "Thunderbolt Hill" and his com- 
panion said, "How is he as a lecturer?" 

"Well, " was the response, "he ain't Gough by a 
d d sight." 

How comically he told of a country druggist's 
clerk to whom he put the query, " What is the most 
popular pill just now?" And the quick answer, 
" Schenk's — they do say the Craowned Heads is all 
atakin' of 'em!" 

Or the request for his funniest lecture for the 
benefit of a hearse in a rural hamlet ! 

His experience in a little village where he and 
Mrs. Fields wanted to find a boarding-house: 
The lady of the house demurred; she had "got 
pretty tired of boarders," but at last capitulated 
with, "Well, I'll let you come in if you'll do your 
own stretching." This proved to mean no wait- 
ress at the table. 

The morning after their arrival, he went out for 
a long walk in the motmtain air, and returning 
was accosted by his host: "I see you are quite a 
predestinarian." As he was resting on one of the 
wooden chairs, the man said: "I got those chairs 
for piazzary purposes, " and enlarged on the trouble 
of getting good help in haying time: "Why, my 
neighbour, Jake Stebbins, had a boy in his gang 
named Henry Ward Beecher Gooley. He was so 



22 Memories and Anecdotes 

dreadful pious that on extra hot mornings he'd call 
*em all together at eleven o'clock and ask 'em to 
join in singing, 'Lord, Dismiss us with Thy 
Blessing.'" 

All these anecdotes were told to me by Mr. 
Fields and I intend to give only those memories 
which are my own. 

Mr. Fields was wonderfully kind to budding 
authors. Professor Brown sent him, without my 
knowledge, my two-column appreciation of dear 
Tom Hood, after his memorials were written by 
his son and daughter. And before many weeks 
came a box of his newest books for me, with a little 
note on finest paper and wide margin, "hoping 
that your friendship may always be continued 
towards our house. " 

I cannot speak of Mr. Fields and fail to pay my 
tribute of loving admiration to his wife, Annie 
Fields. When I first met that lady in her home at 
148 Charles Street, she was so exquisitely dainty, 
refined, spirituelle, and beautiful, I felt, as I ex- 
pressed it, "square-toed and common." She was 
sincerely cordial to all who were invited to that 
sacred shrine; she was the perfect hostess and 
housekeeper, the ever-busy philanthropist, a classic 
poet, a strong writer of prose when eager to aid 
some needed reform. Never before had I seen 



Literary Treasures 23 

such a rare combination of the esthetic and prac- 
tical, and she shone wherever placed. Once when 
she was with us, I went up to her room to see if 
I could help her as she was leaving. She was 
seated on the floor, pulling straps tightly round 
some steamer rugs and a rainy day coat, and she 
explained she always attended to such "little 
things. " As one wrote of her, after her death, she 
made the most of herself, but she made more of 
her husband. Together they went forward, side 
by side, to the last, comrades and true lovers. 

Two of all the wonderful literary treasures in 
their drawing-room produced a great impression 
on me, one a caricature of Thackeray's face done 
by himself with no mercy shown to his flattened, 
broken nose. A lady said to him: "There is only 
one thing about you I could never get over, your 
nose." "No wonder, madam, there is no bridge 
to it." The other was an invitation to supper in 
Charles Lamb's own writing, and at the bottom of 
the page, "Ptins at nine." 

Two famous story-tellers of the old-fashioned 
type were Doctor Dixi Crosby of Hanover, and 
his son " Ben," who made a great name for himself 
in New York City as a surgeon, and also as a 
brilliant after-dinner speaker. Doctor Crosby's 
preference was for the long-drawn-out style, as 



24 Memories and Anecdotes 

this example, which I heard him tell several times, 
shows : 

A man gave a lecture in a New England town 
which failed to elicit much applause and this 
troubled him. As he left early next morning on 
the top of the stage-coach, he interviewed the 
driver, who seemed not anxious to talk. "Did 
you hear much said about my lecture last night? 
Do you think it pleased the audience?" 

" Oh, I guess they were well enough satisfied; 
some were anyway. " 

" Were there any who expressed dissatisfaction? " 

"I would not pry into it, stranger; there wasn't 
much said against it anyhow." 

"Now you have aroused my curiosity. I must 
beg you to let me know. Who criticized it, and 
what did they say? It might help me to hear it. " 

"Well, Squire Jones was the man; he does not 
say much one way or other. But I'll tell you he 
always gets the gist of it. " 

"And what was his verdict?" 

"If you must know, Squire Jones he said, said he, 
he thought 'twas — awful shaller. " 
e Doctor Ben's Goffstown Muster was a quicker 
tempo and had a better climax. 'Twas the great oc- 
casion of the annual military reviews. He graphi- 
cally described boys driving colts hardly broken; 



A "Beacon Light" 25 

mothers nursing babies, very squally ; girls and 
their beaux sitting in the best wagon holding hands 
and staring about (as Warner said to me, "Young 
love in the country is a solemn thing ") ; the booths 
for sale of gingerbread, peanuts, cider, candies, and 
popcorn; the marshal of the day dashing here and 
there on his prancing steed. All was excitement, 
great crowds, and the blare of the band. Suddenly 
an aged pair, seemingly skeletons, so bony and 
wan were they, were seen tottering toward the 
fence, where they at last stopped. They had come 
from the direction of the graveyard. The marshal 
rushed forward calling out, "Go back, go back; 
this is not the general resurrection, it is only the 
Goffstown Muster." 

Doctor Ben Crosby was one of the most admir- 
able mimics ever known and without a suspicion 
of ill-nature. Sometimes he would call on us 
representing another acquaintance, who had just 
left, so perfectly that the gravest and stiffest were 
in danger of hysterics. This power his daughter 
inherited. 

John Lord, the historical lecturer, was always a 
"beacon light" (which was the name he gave his 
lectures when published) as he discussed the 
subjects and persons he took for themes before 
immense audiences everywhere. His conversa- 



26 Memories and Anecdotes 

tion was also intensely interesting. He was a 
social lion and a favourite guest. His lectures 
have still a large annual sale — no one who once 
knew him or listened to his pyrotechnic climaxes 
could ever forget him or them. It was true that 
he made nine independent and distinct motions 
simultaneously in his most intense delivery. 
I once met him going back to his rooms at his hotel 
carrying a leather bag. He stopped, opened it, 
showing a bottle of Scotch whiskey, and explained 
" I am starting in on a lecture on Moses. " There 
was a certain simplicity about the man. Once 
when his right arm was in a sling, broken by a fall 
from a horse, he offered prayer in the old church. 
And unable to use his arm as usual, he so balanced 
his gyrations that he in some way drifted around 
until when he said "Amen" his face fronted the 
whitewashed wall back of his pulpit. He turned 
to the minister standing by him, saying in a very 
audible whisper, "Do you think anybody noticed 
it?" 

He was so genuinely hospitable that when a 
friend suddenly accepted his "come up any time" 
invitation, he found no one at home but the doctor, 
who proposed their killing a chicken. Soon one 
was let out, but she evaded her pursuers. "You 
shoo, and I'll catch," cried the kind host, but 



A Master of Synonyms 27 

shrank back as the fowl came near, exclaiming: 
"Say, West, has a hen got teeth?" At last they 
conquered, plucked, and cooked her for a somewhat 
tardy meal, with some potatoes clawed up in the 
potato field. Once, when very absent-minded, at 
a hotel table in a coimtry tavern, the waitress was 
astonished to watch him as he took the oil cruet 
from the castor and proceeded to grease his boots. 

Doctor John Ordronaux, Professor of Medical 
Jurisprudence at Dartmouth and various other 
colleges and medical schools, was another erudite 
scholar, who made a permanent impression on all 
he met. While yet at college, his words were so 
unusual and his vocabulary so full that a wag once 
advertised on the bulletin board on the door of 
Dartmouth Hall, "Five hundred new adjectives 
by John Ordronaux." 

He was haunted by synonyms, and told me they 
interfered with his writing, so many clamouring 
for attention. He was a confirmed bachelor with 
very regular habits; wanted his bed to be left 
to air the entire day, he to make it himself at 
precisely 5.30 p.m., or as near as possible. His 
walk was peculiar, with knees stiffiy bent out and 
elbows crooked as if to repel all feminine aggression, 
"a progressive porcupine" as someone described 
his gait. His hour for retiring was always the 



28 Memories and Anecdotes 

same; when calling leaving about 9.30. Rallied 
about his methodical habits, he was apt to men- 
tion many of his old friends who had indulged 
themselves in earthly pleasures, all of whom he had 
the sad pleasure of burying. 

He was a great admirer of my mother for her 
loveliness and kind interest in the students; after 
her death he was a noble aid to me in many ways. 
I needed his precautions about spreading myself 
too thin, about being less flamboyantly loquacious, 
and subduing my excessive enthusiasm and 
emotional prodigality. Once after giving me a 
drive, he kindly said, as he helped me out, "I 
have quite enjoj'-ed yoiu- cheerful prattle." Fact 
was, he had monologued it in his most sesqui- 
pedalian phraseology. I had no chance to say one 
word. He had his own way of gaining magnetism ; 
believed in associating -^dth butchers. Did you 
ever know one that was anasmic, especially at 
slaughtering time? From them and the animals 
there and in stables, and the smell of the flowing 
blood, he felt that surely a radiant magnetism was 
gained. Those he visited "thought he was real 
democratic and a pleasant spoken man." He 
told of an opportunity he once had for regular 
employment, riding on the stage-coach by the side 
of a farmer's pretty daughter. She suggested that 



A Day with Bryant 29 

he might Hke a milk route, and "perhaps father can 
get you one. " So formal, dignified, and fastidious 
was he that this seems improbable, but I quote his 
own account. 

Doctor Ordronaux visited at my uncle's, a 
physician, when I was resting there from over- 
work. After his departure, uncle received a letter 
from him which he handed to me saying, "Guess 
this is meant for you. " I quote proudly : 

I rejoice to have been permitted to enjoy so much of 
Miss Sanborn's society, and to discover what I never 
before fully appreciated, that beneath the scintilla- 
tions of a brilliant intellect she hides a vigorous and 
analytic understanding, and when age shall have 
somewhat tempered her emotional susceptibilities 
she will shine with the steady light of a planet, reach- 
ing her perihelion and taking a permanent place in 
the firmament of letters. 

Sounds something like a Johnsonian epitaph, but 
wasn't it great? 

I visited his adopted mother at Roslyn, Long 
Island, and they took me to a Sunday dinner with 
Bryant at " Cedarmere, " a fitting spot for a poet's 
home. The aged poet was in vigorous health, 
mind and body. Going to his library he took 
down an early edition of his Thanatopsis, point- 
ing out the nineteen lines written some time 



30 Memories and Anecdotes 

before the rest. Mottoes hung on the wall such 
as "As thy days so shall thy strength be." I 
ventured to ask how he preserved such vitality, 
and he said, " I owe a great deal to daily air baths 
and the flesh brush, plenty of outdoor air and open 
fireplaces." What an impressive personality; 
erect, with white hair and long beard; his eye- 
brows looked as if snow had fallen on them. His 
conversation was delightfully informal. "What 
does your name mean?" he inquired, and I had to 
say, "I do not know, it has changed so often," 
and asked, "What is the origin of yours?" "Bri- 
ant — brilliant, of course." He told the butler 
to close the door behind me lest I catch cold from 
a draught, quoting this couplet: 

When the wind strikes you through a hole, 
Go make your will and mind your soul ; 

and informing me that this advice was found in 
every language, if not dialect, in the world. He 
loved every inch of his coimtry home, was interested 
in farming, flowers, the water-view and fish-pond, 
fond of long walks, and preferred the simple life. 
In his rooms were many souvenirs of early travel. 
His walls were covered with the finest en- 
gravings and paintings from the best American 
artists. He was too willing to be imposed 



A Wedding Trip in 1826 31 

upon by young authors and would-be poets. 
He said: "People expect too much of me, alto- 
gether too much." That Sunday was his last 
before his address on Mazzini in Central Park. 
He finished with the hot sun over his head, and 
walking across the park to the house of Grant 
Wilson, he fell down faint and hopelessly ill on the 
doorstep. He never rallied, and after thirteen 
days the end came. An impressive warning to the 
old, who are selfishly urged to do hard tasks, that 
they must conserve their own vitality. Bryant 
was eighty-four when killed by over-exertion, with 
a mind as wonderful as ever. 

I will now recount the conditions when Ezekiel 
Webster and his second wife took their wedding 
trip in a "one hoss shay" to the White Mountains 
in 1826. 

Grandma lived to be ninety-six, with her mind 
as clear as ever, and two years before her death she 
gave me this story of their experiences at that time. 
My mother told me she knew of more than thirty 
proposals she had received after grandfather's 
death, but she said "she would rather be the widow 
of Ezekiel Webster, than the wife of any other 
man." The following is her own description. 

The only house near the Crawford Notch was the 
Willey House, in which the family were living. A 



S2 Memories and Anecdotes 

week before a slide had come down by the side of the 
house and obstructed the road. Mr. Willey and two 
men came to our assistance, taking out the horse and 
lifting the carriage over the debris. 

They described the terrors of the night of the slide. 
The rain was pouring in torrents, the soil began to 
slide from the tops of the rocks, taking with it trees, 
boulders, and all in its way ; the crashing and thunder- 
ing were terrible. Three weeks later the entire family, 
nine in number, in fleeing to a place of refuge, were 
overtaken by a second slide and all buried. 

The notch was then as nature made it; no steam 
whistle or car clatter had intruded upon its solitude. 
The first moving object we saw after passing through 
was a man in the distance. He proved to be Ethan 
Crawford, who kept the only house of entertainment. 
He was walking leisurely, drawing a rattlesnake along 
by its tail. He had killed the creature and was taking 
it home as a trophy. He was a stalwart man, who had 
always lived among the mountains, and had become 
as familiar with the wild beasts as with the cat and 
dog of his own home. He said that only a few days 
before he had passed a bear drinking at a spring. He 
led the way to his house, a common farmhouse with- 
out paint, or carpet, or cushioned seat. The landlady 
was spinning wool in the kitchen. 

Mr. Crawford supplied the table when he could by 
his gun or fishing-rod; otherwise the fare was meagre. 
When asked for mustard for the salt meat, they said 
they had none, at least in the house, but they had some 
growing. 

A young turkey halted about in the dining-room 
gobbling in a noisy way, and the girl in attendance 
was requested by Mr. Webster, with imperturbable 



A Wedding Trip in 1826 33 

gravity, either to kindly take it out or to bring its 
companion in, for it seemed lonely. She stood in 
utter confusion for a minute, then seized the squawking 
fowl and disappeared. 

When Mr. Crawford was asked if ladies ever went 
up Mount Washington, he said two had been up, and 
he hoped never to see another trying it, for the la:;t 
one he brought down on his shoulders, or she would 
have never got down alive. 

The first night I asked for a change of bed linen. 
No attention was paid to my request, and after wait- 
ing a long time I found the landlady and asked her 
if she would have the sheets changed. She straight- 
ened up and said she didn't think the bed would hurt 
anybody, for only two ministers from Boston had slept 
in it. We stayed some days and although it was the 
height of the season, we were the only guests. Noth- 
ing from the outside world reached us but one news- 
paper, and that brought the startling news of the 
death of Adams and Jefferson on the fourth of July, 
just fifty years after their signing the Declaration of 
Independence. 

The large leghorn bonnet which Mrs. Webster 
wore on that eventful journey hangs in my collec- 
tion of old relics. She told me it used to hit the 
wheel when she looked out . And near it is her dark- 
brown "calash, " a big bonnet with rattans stitched 
in so it would easily move back and forward. Her 
winter hood was of dark blue silk, warmly wadded 
and prettily quilted. 

WTio would not wish to live to be a htindred if 

3 



34 Memories and Anecdotes 

health and mental vigour could be retained? 
This rare old lady wrote lively, interesting letters 
on all current topics, and was as eager to win at 
whist, backgammon, or logomachy as a child. Her 
religion was the most beautiful part of her life, 
the same every day, self-forgetting, practical 
Christianity. She is not forgotten ; her life is still 
a stimulus, an inspiration, a benediction. The 
love and veneration of those who gathered about 
her in family reimions were expressed by her 
nephew Dr. Fred B. Lund, one of the most distin- 
guished surgeons of Boston: 

To her who down the pathway of the years 
Serene and calm her blessed way she trod. 

Has given smiles for smiles, and tears for tears. 
Held fast the good in life, and shown how God 

Has given to us His servants here below, 
A shining mark to follow in our strife, 

Who proves that He is good, and makes us know 
Through ten decades of pure and holy life 

How life may be made sweeter at its end. 
How graces from the seasons that have fled 

May light her eyes and added glory lend 
To saintly aureole about her head. 

We bring our Christmas greeting heartily, 
Three generations gathered at her feet, 

Who like a little child has led, while we 

Have lived and loved beneath her influence sweet. 



"^ ^^ 



m^. '!r^^ 



^A\v;i' 



0ifm 



'»L^^ \' 




■^ 



THE STREET FRONTING THE SANBORN HOME AT HANOVER. N. H. 



Levi Parsons Morton 35 

Levi Parsons Morton, bom at Shoreham, Ver- 
mont, May 16, 1824, was named for his mother's 
brother, Levi Parsons, the first American mission- 
ary to Palestine. He was the son of a minister. 
Reverend Daniel Morton, who with his wife 
Lucretia Parsons, like so many other clergymen, 
was obliged to exist on a starvation salary, only 
six hundred dollars a year. Among his ances- 
tors was George Morton of Battery, Yorkshire, 
financial agent in London of the Mayflower. Mr. 
L. P. Morton may have inherited his financial 
cleverness from this ancestor. 

After studying at Shoreham Academy, he entered 
a country store at Enfield, Massachusetts, and was 
there for two years, then taught a district school, 
and later entered a general store at Concord, New 
Hampshire, when only seventeen. His father was 
unable to send him to college, and Mr. Estabrook, 
the manager of the store, decided to establish him 
in a branch store at Hanover, New Hampshire, 
where Dartmouth College is located, giving him 
soon afterward an interest in the business. Here 
he stayed until nearly twenty-four years old. Mr. 
Morton immediately engaged a stylish tailor from 
Boston, W. H. Gibbs, or as all called him, "Bill 
Gibbs, " whose skill at making even cheap suits 
look smart brought him a large patronage from the 



36 Memories and Anecdotes 

college students. Once a whole graduating class 
were supplied vnth. dress suits from this artist. 
]\Ir. Morton had a most interesting store, sunn}'' 
and scrupulously clean, "^ith everything an3^one 
could ask for, and few ever went out of it without 
bmdng something, even if they had entered simply 
from ciuiosity. The clerks were trained to be 
courteous without being persistent. Saturday was 
bargain day, and printed lists of what could be 
obtained on that day at an absurdly cheap rate 
were widely distributed through the neighbouring 
to-^ATis. People came in large numbers to those 
bargains. Long rows of all sorts of odd vehicles 
were hitched up and down the street. A man 
would drop in for some smoking tobacco and buy 
himself a good straw hat or winter cap. A wife 
would call because soda was offered so cheaply and 
would end b}^ bu}'ing a black silk dress, "worth 
one dollar a yard but seUing for today only for 
fifty cents. " Mr. Morton was perhaps the original 
pioneer in methods which have built up the great 
department stores of the present day. If he had 
received the education his father so craved for 
him he would have probably had an inferior and 
very different career. 

Mr. Morton greatly enjoyed his life at Hanover; 
he was successful and looking forward to greater 



Levi Parsons Morton 37 

openings in his business career. My father, taking 
a great fancy to this enterprising, cheery young 
man, invited him to dine each day at our house for 
nearly a year. They were great friends and had 
a happy influence upon each other. There were 
many jolly laughs and much earnest talk. He met 
Miss Lucy Kimball of Flatlands, Long Island, at 
our house at a Commencement reception, and 
they were soon married. She lived only a few 
years. 

Mr. Morton was next in Boston in the dry -goods 
house of James Beebe Morgan & Company, and 
was soon made a partner. Mr. Morgan was the 
father of Pierpont Morgan. It is everlastingly to 
Mr. Morton's honour that after he failed in business 
in New York he was able before long to invite his 
creditors to dinner, and underneath the service 
plate of each creditor was a check for payment in 
full. 

Preferring to give money while living, his whole 
path has been marked by large benefactions. My 
memory is of his Hanover life and his friendship 
with my father, but it is interesting to note the 
several steps in his career: Honorary Commis- 
sioner, Paris Exposition, 1878; Member 46th Con- 
gress, 1879-81, Sixth New York District; United 
States Minister to France, 1881-85; Vice-Presi- 



38 Memories and Anecdotes 

dent of the United States, 1889-93; Governor of 
New York, 1895-6. 

Mr. Morton recently celebrated at his Washing- 
ton home the ninety -first anniversary in a life full 
of honoiirs, and what is more important — of honour. 



CHAPTER II 

A Friend at Andover, Mass. — Hezekiah Butterworth — A Few of 
my Own Folks — Professor Putnam of Dartmouth — One 
Year at Packer Institute, Brooklyn — Beecher's Face in 
Prayer — The Poet Saxe as I Saw him — Offered the Use of a 
Rare Library — Miss Edna Dean Proctor — New Stories of 
Greeley — Experiences at St. Louis. 

Next a few months at Andover for music lessons 
— piano and organ. A valuable friend was found 
in Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, who had just 
published her Gates Ajar. She invited me to her 
study and wanted to know what I meant to accom- 
plish in life and urged me to write. "I have so 
much work called for now that I cannot keep up 
my contributions to The Youth's Companion. I 
want you to have my place there. What would 
you like to write about?" 

"Don't know." 

"Haven't you anything at home to describe. " 

"No." 

"Any pets?" 

"Why I have a homely, ordinary dog, but he 
knows a lot. " 

And so I was roused to try "Our Rab and His 

39 



40 Memories and Anecdotes 

Friends," which was kindly mailed by Miss 
Phelps to Mr. Ford, the editor, with a wish that he 
accept the little story, which he did, sending a wel- 
come check and asking for more contributions. 
I kept a place there for several years. 

In Miss Phelps's case, one must believe in hered- 
ity and partly in Huxley's statement that "we are 
automata propelled by our ancestors. ' ' Her grand- 
father, Moses Stuart, was Professor of Sacred 
Literature at Andover, a teacher of Greek and 
Latin, and a believer in that stem school of 
theology and teleology. It was owing perhaps to 
a combination of severity in climatic and in intel- 
lectual environment that New England developed 
an austere type of scholars and theologians. 
Their mental vision was focused on things remote 
in time and supernatural in quality, so much so 
that they often overlooked the simple and natural 
expression of their obligation to things nearby. 
It sometimes happened that their tender and ami- 
able characteristics were better known to learned 
colleagues with whom they were in intellectual 
sympathy, than to their own wives and children. 
Sometimes their finer and more lovable qualities 
were first brought to the attention of their families 
when some distinguished professor or divine feel- 
ingly pronoimced a funeral eulogy. 



A Friend at Andover 41 

It's a long way from the stem Moses Stuart, who 
believed firmly in hell and universal damnation and 
who, with Calvin, depicted infants a span long 
crawling on the floor of hell, to his gifted grand- 
daughter, who, although a member of an evangel- 
ical church, wrote: "Death and heaven could 
not seem very different to a pagan from what they 
seem to me." Her heart was nearly broken by 
the sudden death of her lover on the battlefield. 
"Roy, snatched away in an instant by a dreadful 
God, and laid out there in the wet and snow — in the 
hideous wet and snow — never to kiss him, never 
to see him any more." Her GaUs Ajar when it 
appeared was considered by some to be revolu- 
tionary and shocking, if not wicked. Now, we 
gently smile at her diluted, sentimental heaven, 
where all the happy beings have what they most 
want; she to meet Roy and find the same dear 
lover; another to have a piano ; a child to get ginger 
snaps. I never quite fancied the restriction of 
musical instruments in visions of heaven to harps 
alone. They at first blister the fingers imtil they 
are calloused. The afflicted washerwoman, whose 
only daughter had just died, was not in the least 
consoled by the assurance that Melinda was per- 
fectly happy, playing a harp in heaven. "She 
never was no musicianer, and I'd rather see her 



42 Memories and Anecdotes 

a-settin* by my tub as she used to set when I was 
a-wringin' out the clothes from the suds, than 
to be up there a-harpin'." Very different, as a 
matter of fact, were the instruments, more or less 
musical, around which New England families 
gathered on Sunday evenings for the singing of 
hymns and "sacred songs." Yet there was often 
real faith and sincere devotion pedalled out of the 
squeaking old melodeon. 

Professor Stuart's eldest daughter, Elizabeth 
Stuart, married Austin Phelps in 1842; who was 
then pastor of Pine Street Church in Boston. 
Their daughter was bom in Boston in 1844, ^^^ 
named Mary Gray Phelps. They moved to 
Andover in 1848, where two sons were born. Mrs. 
Phelps, who died when Mary was seven years old, 
was bright, interesting, unusual. She wrote Tales 
of New England, chiefly stories of clerical life; 
also Sunnyside Sketches, remarkably popular at 
the time. Her nom de plume was " Trusta." Pro- 
fessor Phelps married her sister Mary, for his 
second wife. She lived only a year, and it was 
after her death that Mary changed her name 
to that of her mother, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 
Professor Phelps had a most nervous tempera- 
ment, so much so that he could not sleep if a 
cricket chirped in his bedroom, and the stamping 



Hezekiah Buttervvorth 43 

of a horse in a nearby stable destroyed all hope 
of slumber. 

Miss Phelps inherited her mother's talent for 
writing stories, also her humour and her sensitive, 
loving nature, as is seen by her works on Temper- 
ance Reforms, Abuses of Factory Operators, and her 
arraignment of the vivisectionist. Later, when 
I was living at the "Abandoned Farm," she had 
a liking for the farm I now owti, about half a mile 
farther on from my first agricultural experiment. 
She called on me, and begged me as woman for 
woman in case she bought the neighbouring farm, 
to seclude all my animals and fowls from 5 p.m. till 
10 A.M. each morning, as she must get her sleep, 
for, Hke her father, she was a Hfe-long sufferer 
from insomnia. I would have done this if it were 
possible to repress the daybreak cries natural to a 
small menagerie which included chickens, turkeys, 
ducks, and geese, besides two peacocks and four 
guinea fowls. 

But to return to the Youth's Companion. When 
I found it impossible to write regularly for Mr. 
Ford, he made a change for the better, securing 
Mr. Hezekiah Butterworth, a poet, historian, and 
author of the Zigzag Series, which had such large 
sales. Happening to be in Boston, I called at the 
office and said to Mr. Ford: "It grieves me a bit 



44 Memories and Anecdotes 

to see my column taken by someone else, and 
what a strange pen name — 'Hezekiah Butter- 
worth.'" 

" But that is his own name, " said the editor. 

" Indeed ; I am afraid I shall hate that Hezzy. " 

"Well, just try it; come with me to his work- 
room." 

When we had gone up one flight, Mr. Ford 
opened a door, where a gentle, sweet-faced young 
man of slender build was sitting at a table, the 
floor all around him literally strewn with at least 
three hundred manuscripts, each one to be ex- 
amined as a possible winner in a contest for a 
five-hundred-dollar prize story. Both English and 
American authors had competed. He was, as 
De Quincey put it, "snowed up. " Then my friend 
said with a laugh, " Miss Sanborn has come to see 
Hezzy whom she fancies she shall hate." A 
painfully awkward introduction, but Mr. Butter- 
worth laughed heartily, and made me very wel- 
come, and from that time was ever one of my most 
faithful friends, honouring my large Thanksgiving 
parties by his presence for many years. 

I shall tell but two stories about my father in his 
classroom. He had given Pope's Rape of the Lock 
as subject for an essay to a young man who had not 
the advantage of being bom educated, but did his 



A Few of My Own Folks 45 

best at all times. As the young man read on in 
class, father, who in later years was a little deaf, 
stopped him saying, "Sir, did I understand you 
to say Sniff?" "No, sir, I did not, I said Slyph." 

In my father's Latin classes there were many ab- 
surd mistakes, as when he asked a student, " What 
was ambrosia?" and the reply was, "The gods' 
hair oil," an answer evidently suggested by the 
constant advertisement of "Sterling's Ambrosia" 
for the hair. 

I will now refer to my two uncles on my father's 
side. The older one was Dyer H. Sanborn, a noted 
educator of his time, and a grammarian, publish- 
ing a text-book on that theme and honouring the 
parts of speech with a rhyme which began — 

A noun's the name of anything, 
As hoop or garden, ball or swing; 
Three little words we often see 
The articles, a, an, and the. 

Mrs. Eddy, of Christian Science fame, spoke of 
him with pride as her preceptor. He liked to con- 
stitute himself an examining committee of one 
and visit the schools near him. Once he found 
only five very small children, and remarked ap- 
provingly, "Good order here. " He, unfortunately, 
for his brothers, developed an intense interest in 
genealogy, and after getting them to look up the 



46 Memories and Anecdotes 

family tree in several branches, would soon an- 
nounce to dear brother Edwin, or dear brother 
John, "the papers you sent have disappeared; 
please send a duplicate at once. " 

My other uncle, John Sewall Sanborn, graduated 
at Dartmouth, and after studying law, he started 
for a career in Canada, landed in Sherbrooke, P. Q., 
with the traditional fifty cents in his pocket, and 
began to practise law. Soon acquiring a fine prac- 
tice, he married the strikingly handsome daughter 
of Mr. Brooks, the most important man in that 
region, and rose to a position on the Queen's 
Bench. He was twelve years in Parliament, and 
later a "Mr. Justice," corresponding with a 
member of our Federal Supreme Coiu-t. In fact, 
he had received every possible honour at his death 
except knighthood, which he was soon to have 
received. 

My great-grandfather, on the paternal side, was 
always called "Grandsir Hook," and Dr. Crosby 
assured me that I inherited my fat, fun, and asthma 
from that obese person, weighing nearly three 
hundred pounds. When he died a slice had to 
be cut off, not from his body, but from the side of 
the house, to let the coffin squeeze through. I 
visited his grave with father. It was an immense 
elevation even at so remote a date. David San- 



Daniel Webster 47 

bom married his daughter Hannah Hook, after a 
formal courtship. The "love" letters to "Hon- 
oured Madam" are still preserved. Fortunately 
the "honoured madam" had inherited the sense 
of humour. 

A few words about Mr. Daniel Webster. I re- 
member going to Marshfield with my mother, his 
niece, and sitting on his knee while he looked over 
his large morning mail, throwing the greater part 
into the waste basket. Also in the dining-room I 
can still recall the delicious meals prepared by an 
old-time Southern mammy, who wore her red and 
yellow turban regally. The capital jokes by his 
son Fletcher and guests sometimes caused the 
dignified and impressive butler to rapidly dart 
behind the large screen to laugh, then soon back 
to duty, imperturbable as before. 

The large library occupied one ell of the house, 
with its high ceiling running in points to a finish. 
There hung the strong portraits of Lord Ashburton 
and Mr. Webster. At the top of his own picture 
at the right hung his large grey slouch hat, so well 
known. In the next room the silhouette of his 
mother, and underneath it his words, "My excel- 
lent mother. " Also a portrait of Grace Fletcher, 
his first wife, and of his son Edward in uniform. 
Edward was killed in the Mexican War. 



48 Memories and Anecdotes 

There is a general impression that Mr. Webster 
was a heavy drinker and often under the influence 
of liquor when he rose to speak; as usual there 
are two sides to this question. George Ticknor of 
Boston told my father that he had been with Web- 
ster on many public occasions, and never saw him 
overcome but once. That was at the Revere 
House in Boston, where he was expected to speak 
after dinner. " I sat next to him, " said Ticknor; 
"suddenly he put his hand on my shoulder and 
whispered, 'Come out and run around the com- 
mon.'" This they did and the speech was a suc- 
cess. There is a wooden statue of Daniel Webster 
that has stood for forty years in Hingham, Massa- 
chusetts. It is larger than life and called a good 
portrait. It was made more than sixty years ago 
as a figurehead for the ship Daniel Webster hut 
never put on. That would have been appropriate 
if he was occasionally half seas over. Daniel's 
devotion to his only brother "Zeke" is pleasant to 
remember. By the way, there are many men who 
pay every debt promptly and never take a drop 
too much, who would be proud to have a record 
for something accomphshed that is as worth while 
as his record. When Daniel Webster entered 
Dartmouth College as a freshman directly from his 
father's farm, he was a raw specimen, awkward, 



Daniel Webster 49 

thin, and so dark that some mistook him for a new 
Indian recruit. He was then called " Black Dan. " 
His father's second wife and the mother of Zeke and 
Dan had decidedly a generous infusion of Indian 
blood. A gentleman at Hanover who remembered 
Webster there said his large, dark, resplendent 
eyes looked like coach lanterns on a dark night. 

Mrs. Ezekiel Webster told me that her husband 
asked her after their mamage to allow his mother 
to come home to them at Boscawen, New Hamp- 
shire. She said she was a strikingly fine-looking 
woman with those same marvellous eyes, long 
straight black hair, high cheekbones ; a tall person 
with strong individuality. Mrs. Webster was sure 
where the swarthy infusion came from. This 
mother, who had been a hard worker and faithful 
wife, now delighted in sitting by the open fire 
evenings and smoking an old pipe she had brought 
with her. 

Webster saved his Alma Mater, and after the 
favourable decision on the College Case, Judge 
Hopkinson wrote to Professor BrowTi of Dart- 
mouth suggesting an inscription on the doors of 
the college building, "Founded by Eleazer Wheel- 
ock, refounded by Daniel Webster." These 
words are now placed in bronze at the portals of 
Webster Memorial Hall. 



50 Memories and Anecdotes 

To go back, as I did, from Andover to Hanover, 
I pay my tribute to Professor John Newton Put- 
nam, Greek Professor at Dartmouth. His char- 
acter was perfect ; his face of rare beauty shone with 
kind and helpful thought for everyone. I see him, 
as he talked at our mid-week meetings. One 
could almost perceive an aura or halo around his 
classic head; wavy black hair which seemed to 
have an almost purple light through it ; large dark 
eyes, full of love. What he said was never per- 
functory, never dull. He was called "John, the 
Beloved Disciple." Still he was thoroughly hu- 
man and brimming over with fun, puns, and ex- 
quisitely droll humour, and quick in seeing a 
funny condition. 

It is said that on one occasion when there hap- 
pened to be a party the same night as our "Thurs- 
day evening meeting," he was accosted by a 
friend as he was going into the vestry with the 
inquiry, "Are you not to be tempted by the social 
delights of the evening?" To which he replied, 
"No, I prefer to suffer affliction with the people of 
God, rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season." The college inspector reported to him 
that he was obliged to break into a room at college 
where a riot was progressing and described a negro's 
efforts to hide himself by scurrying under the bed. 



Professor John Newton Putnam 51 

"But how unnecessary; all he had to do was 
to keep dark." 

Once he was found waiting a long time at the 
counter of a grocery store. A friend passing said, 
"You've been there quite a while, Putnam." 

"Yes, I'm waiting all my appointed time until 
my change doth come." 

Expecting "Help" from Norwich, he was gazing 
in that direction and explained, "I'm looking unto 
the hills whence cometh our help." 

We often diverted ourselves at his home with 
"Rounce, " the duplicate of euchre in dominoes. 
And we were startled by a Madonna dropping 
to the floor, leaving its frame on the wall. In- 
stantly Professor Putnam remarked: "Her will- 
ing soul would not stay 'in such a frame as this. ' " 
And when called to preside at the organ when the 
college choir was away, he whispered to me, 
"Listen to my interludicrous performance." 

How sad the end ! A delicate constitution con- 
quered by tuberculosis. With his wife he sought 
a milder climate abroad and died there. But no 
one can compute the good accomplished even by 
his unconscious influence, for everything was of 
the purest, highest, best. 

Soon after my return from St. Louis, I received a 
call from Packer Institute in Brooklyn, to teach 



52 Memories and Anecdotes 

English Literature, which was most agreeable. 
But when I arrived, the principal, Mr. Crittenden, 
told me that the woman who had done that work 
had decided to remain. I was asked by Mr. 
Crittenden, " Can you read? " " Yes, I think so. " 
"Then come with me." He touched a bell and 
then escorted me to the large chapel capable of 
holding nearly twelve hundred, where I found the 
entire faculty assembled to Hsten to my efforts. 
I was requested to stand up in the pulpit and read 
from a large Bible the fourteenth chapter of John, 
and the twenty-third psalm. That was easy 
enough. Next request, "Please recite something 
comic. " I gave them " Comic Miseries." " Now 
try a little pathos. " I recited Alice Cary's " The 
Volunteer," which was one of my favourite poems. 
Then I heard a professor say to Mr. Crittenden, 
" She recites with great taste and expression ; what 
a pity she has that Hsp ! ' ' And hitherto I had been 
bHssfully unaware of such a failing. One other 
selection in every-day prose, and I was let off. 
The faculty were now exchanging their opinions 
and soon dispersed without one word to me. I said 
to Mr. Crittenden, as I came down the pulpit 
stairs, "I do not want to take the place." 
But he insisted that they all wanted me to come 
and begin work at once. I had large classes. 



Packer Institute 53 

number of pupils eight hundred and fifty. It was 
a great opportunity to help young girls to read in 
such a way that it would be a pleasure to their 
home friends, or to recite in company, as was 
common then, naturally and without gestures. I 
took one more class of little girls who had received 
no training before in that direction. They were 
easy to inspire, were wholly free from self-conscious- 
ness, and their parents were so much pleased that 
we gave an exhibition of what they could do in 
reading and recitation in combination with their 
gymnastics. The chapel was crowded to the 
doors. A plump little German girl was the star 
of the evening. She stood perfectly serene, her 
chubby arms stuck out stiffly from her sides, 
and in a loud, clear voice she recited this 
nonsense ; 

If the butterfly courted the bee, 

And the owl the porcupine ; 
If churches were built on the sea, 

And three times one were nine ; 
If the pony rode his master, 

And the buttercups ate the cows; 
And the cat had the dire disaster 

To be worried, sir, by a mouse; 
And mamma, sir, sold her baby, 

To a gypsy for half a crown. 
And a gentleman were a lady, 

This world would be upside down. 



54 Memories and Anecdotes 

But, if any or all these wonders 

Should ever come about, 
I should not think them blunders, 

For I should be inside out. 

An encore was insisted on. 

I offered to give any in my classes lessons in 
"how to tell a story " with ease, brevity, and point, 
promising to give an anecdote of my own suggested 
by theirs every time. This pleased them, and we 
had a jolly time. The first girl who tried to tell 
a story said : 

I don't know how; never attempted any such thing, 
but what I am going to tell is true and funny. 

My grandfather is very deaf. You may have seen 
him sitting on a pulpit stair at Mr. Beecher's church, 
holding to his ear what looks like a skillet. Last 
spring we went to the country, house-hunting, leaving 
grandfather to guard our home. He was waked, in 
the middle of the night as he supposed, by a noise, 
and started out to find where it came from. It 
continued; so he courageously went downstairs and 
cautiously opened the kitchen door. He reached out 
his skillet-trumpet before him through the partly 
opened door and the milkman poured in a quart of 
milk. 

This story, I am told, is an ancient chestnut. 
But I used to see the deaf grandfather with his 
uplifted skillet on the steps of Beecher's pulpit, 
and the young lady gave it as a real happening in 



Packer Institute 55 

her own home. Did anyone hear of it before 1868 
when she gave it to our anecdote class? I believe 
this was the foundation or starter for similar 
skillet-trumpet stories. 

The girl was applauded, and deserved it. Then 
they asked me for a milk story. I told them of a 
milkman who, in answer to a young mother's 
complaint that the milk he brought for her baby 
was sour, replied: "Well, is there anything outside 
the sourness that doesn't suit you?" And Thor- 
eau remarked that "circumstantial evidence is 
sometimes conclusive, as when a trout is found in 
the morning milk." 

This class was considered so practical and valu- 
able that I was offered pay for it, but it was a 
relief, after exhausting work. 

We had many visitors interested in the work of 
the various classes. One day Beecher strolled 
into the chapel and wished to hear some of the 
girls read. All were ready. One took the morning 
paper; another recited a poem; one read a selection 
from her scrapbook. Beecher afterward inquired : 
"Whom have you got to teach elocution now? 
You used to have a few prize pumpkins on show, 
but now every girl is doing good original work." 
Mr. Crittenden warned me at the outset, "Keep 
an eye out or they'll run over you. " But I never 



56 Memories and Anecdotes 

had anything but kindness from my pupils. I 
realized that cheerful, courteous requests were 
wiser than commands, and sincere friendship more 
winning than "Teachery" primness. I knew of 
an unpopular instructor who, being annoyed by 
his pupils throwing a few peanuts at his desk, said, 
"Young men, if you throw another peanut, I shall 
leave the room. " A shower of peanuts followed. 

So, when I went to my largest class in the big 
chapel, and saw one of my most interesting girls 
sitting on that immense Bible on the pulpit looking 
at me in merry defiance, and kicking her heels 
against the woodwork below, I did not appear to 
see her, and began the exercises, hoping fervently 
that one of the detectives who were always on watch 
might providentially appear. Before long I saw 
one come to the door, look in with an amazed ex- 
pression, only to bring two of the faculty to release 
the young lady from her imeasy pre-eminence. 

I hardly knew my own name at the Packer 
Institute. The students called me "Canary," 
I suppose on account of my yellow hair and rather 
high treble voice; Mr. Crittenden always spoke to 
me as Miss " Sunburn, " and when my laundry was 
returned, it was addressed to "Miss Lampoon." 

Beecher was to me the clerical miracle of his 
age — a man of extraordinary personal magnetism, 



Henry Ward Beecher 57 

with power to rouse laughter and right away compel 
tears, I used to Hsten often to his marvellous ser- 
mons. I can see him now as he went up the middle 
aisle in winter wearing a clumsy overcoat, his face 
giving the impression of heavy, coarse features, 
thick lips, a commonplace nose, eyes that lacked 
expression, nothing to give any idea of the man as 
he would look after the long prayer. When the 
audience reverently bowed their heads my own 
eyes were irresistibly drawn toward the preacher. 
For he prayed as if he felt that he was addressing 
an all-powerful, omnipresent, tender, loving Heav- 
enly Father who was listening to his appeal. And 
as he went on and on with increasing fervour and 
power a marvellous change transfigured that heavy 
face, it shone with a white light and spiritual feeling, 
as if he fully reahzed his commimion with God Him- 
self. I used to think of that phrase in Matthew: 

" And was transfigured before them, 
And his face did shine as the sun." 

I never heard anyone mention this marvellous 
transformation. But I remember that Beecher 
once acknowledged to a reporter that he never 
knew what he had said in his sermon until he 
looked at the resume in Monday's paper. 

During the hard days of Beecher's trial a lady 



58 Memories and Anecdotes 

who was a guest at the house told me she was 
waked one morning by the merry laughter of 
Beecher's little grandchildren and peeping into 
their room found Mr. Beecher having a jolly 
frolic with them. He was trying to get them 
dressed ; his efforts were most comical, putting on 
their garments wrong side out or buttoning in 
front when they were intended to fasten in the 
back, and "funny Grandpa" enjoying it all quite 
as sincerely as these little ones. A pretty picture. 

Saxe (John Godfrey) called during one recess 
hour. The crowds of girls passing back and forth 
interested him, as they seemed to care less for eat- 
ing than for wreathing their arms round each other, 
with a good deal of kissing, and "deary," "per- 
fectly lovely," etc. He described his impressions 
in two words: "Unconscious rehearsing." 

Once he handed me a poem he had just dashed 
off written with pencil, "To my Saxon Blonde." 
I was surprised and somewhat flattered, regarding 
it as a complimentary impromptu. But, on look- 
ing up his poetry in the library, I found the same 
verses printed years before: 

" If bards of old the truth have told, 
The sirens had raven hair; 
But ever since the earth had birth, 
They paint the angels fair." 



John Godfrey Saxe 59 

Probably that was a habit with him. 

When a friend joked him about his very-much- 
at-home manner at the United States Hotel at 
Saratoga, where he went every year, saying as 
they sat together on the upper piazza, "Why, 
Saxe, I should fancy you owned this hotel," he 
rose, and lounging against one of the pillars an- 
swered, "Well, I have a 'lien' on this piazza." 

His epigrams are excellent. He has made more 
and better than any American poet. In Dodd's 
large collection of the epigrams of the world, I 
think there are six at least from Saxe. Let me 
quote two: 

AN EQUIVOCAL APOLOGY 

Quoth Madame Bas-Bleu, "I hear you have said 
Intellectual women are always your dread ; 

Now tell me, dear sir, is it true?" 
"Why, yes," answered Tom, "very likely I may 
Have made the remark in a jocular way ; 

But then on my honour, I didn't mean you!" 

TOO CANDID BY HALF 

As John and his wife were discoursing one day 
Of their several faults, in a bantering way. 

Said she, "Though my unt you disparage, 
I'm sure, my dear husband, our friends will attest 
This much, at the least, that my judgment is best." 

Quoth John, "So they said at our marriage." 



6o Memories and Anecdotes 

When Saxe heard of a man in Chicago who threw 
his wife into a vat of boiHng hog's lard, he re- 
marked: "Now, that's what I call going too far 
with a woman." 

After a railroad accident, in which he received 
some bruises, I said : "You didn't find riding on the 
rails so pleasant?" "Not riding on, but riding off 
the rail was the trouble. " 

He apostrophized the unusually pretty girl who 
at bedtime handed each guest a Hghted candle in 
a candlestick. She fancied some of the fashion- 
able young women snubbed her but Saxe assiired 
her in rhyme : 

" There is not a single one of them all 
Who could, if they would, hold a candle to you." 

He was an inveterate pimster. Miss Caroline 
Ticknor tells us how he used to lie on a couch in 
a back room at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, 
at a very early hour, and amuse the boys who were 
sweeping and dusting the store until one of the 
partners arrived. I believe he never lost a chance 
to indulge in a verbal quibble. "In the mean- 
time, and 'twill be a very mean time. " 

I often regret that I did not preserve his comical 
letters, and those of Richard Grant White and other 
friends who were literary masters. Mr. Grant 



Charles Storrs 6i 

White helped me greatly when I was doubtful 
about some literary question, saying he would do 
anything for a woman whose name was Kate. 
And a Dartmouth graduate, whom I asked for a 
brief story of Father Prout, the Irish poet and 
author, gave me so much material that it was the 
most interesting lecture of my season. He is now 
a most distinguished judge in Massachusetts. 

Saxe, like other humourists, suffered from mel- 
ancholia at the last. Too sad! 

After giving a lecture in the chapel of Packer 
Institute at the time I was with Mrs. Botta in 
New York, I was surprised to receive a call the 
next morning from Mr. Charles Storrs of 23 
Monroe Place, Brooklyn, asking me to go to his 
house, and make use of his library, which he told 
me Horace Greeley had pronounced the best 
working and reference library he had ever known. 
A great opportunity for anyone! Mr. Storrs was 
too busy a man to really enjoy his own library. 
Mrs. Storrs and Miss Edna Dean Proctor, who 
made her home with them, comprised his family, 
as his only daughter had married Miss Proctor's 
brother and lived in Peoria, Illinois. Mr. Storrs 
had made his own fortune, starting out by buying 
his " time " of his father and borrowing an old horse 
and pedlar's cart from a friend. He put into the 



62 Memories and Anecdotes 

cart a large assortment of Yankee notions, or what 
people then called "short goods," as stockings, 
suspenders, gloves, shoestrings, thread and needles, 
tape, sewing silk, etc. He determined to make his 
own fortune and succeeded royally for he became 
a "merchant prince." His was a rarely noble 
and generous nature with a heart as big as his 
brain. Several of his large rooms downstairs were 
crammed with wonderfully beautiful and precious 
things which his soul delighted in picking up, in 
ivory, jade, bronze, and glass. He was so devot- 
edly fond of music that at great expense he had a 
large organ built which could be played by pedal- 
ling and pulling stops in and out, and sometimes 
on Sunday morning he would rise by half -past six, 
and be downstairs in his shirt sleeves hard at 
work, eliciting oratorio or opera music for his 
own delectation. A self-made man, "who did not 
worship his creator." He was always singularly 
modest, although very decided in his opinions. 
Men are asking of late who can be called educated. 
Certainly not a student of the ancient Assyrian or 
the mysteries of the Yogi, or the Baha, or the Bud- 
dhistic legends, when life is so brief and we must 
"act in the living present. " But a man who has 
studied life and human nature as well as the best 
form of books, gained breadth and culture by wide 



Horace Greeley 63 

travel, and is always ready for new truths, that 
man is educated in the best sense, although en- 
tirely self-educated. Greeley used to say, ' ' Charles 
Storrs is a great man." 

Greeley used to just rest and enjoy himself at 
Mr. Storrs's home, often two weeks at a time, and 
liked to shut himself into that wonderful library 
to work or read. Once when he returned unex- 
pectedly, the maid told Miss Proctor that Mr. 
Greeley had just come in from the rain and was 
quite wet, and there was no fire in the library. He 
did not at first care to change to Mr. Storrs's 
special den in the basement. But Miss Proctor 
said "It is too cold here and your coat is quite 
wet." "Oh, I am used to that," he said plain- 
tively. But his special desk was carried down to 
a room bright with an open fire, and he seemed 
glad to be cared for. 

Whitelaw Reid was photographed with Greeley 
when he first came on from the West to take a 
good share of the responsibility of editing the 
Tribune. He stood behind Greeley's chair, and I 
noticed his hair was then worn quite long. But he 
soon attained the New York cut as well as the New 
York cult. Both Reid and John Hay were at that 
time frequent guests of Mr. Storrs, who never 
seemed weary of entertaining his friends. Beecher 



64 Memories and Anecdotes 

was one of his intimate acquaintances and they 
often went to New York together hunting for 
rare treasures. 

I have several good stories about Mr. Greeley 
for which I am indebted to Miss Proctor who told 
them to me. 

1. He used to write way up in a small attic 
in the Tribune building, and seldom allowed any- 
one to interrupt him. Some man, who was greatly 
disgusted over one of Greeley's editorials, climbed 
up to his sanctum, and as soon as his head showed 
above the railing, he began to rave and rage, using 
the most lurid style of profanity. It seemed as if he 
never would stop, but at last, utterly exhausted and 
out of breath and all used up, he waited for a reply. 

Greeley kept on writing, never having looked up 
once. This was too much to be endured, and the 
caller turned to go downstairs, when Greeley called 
out: "Comeback, my friend, come back, and free 
your mind." 

2. Mr. Greeley once found that one of the 
names in what he considered an important article 
on the Board of Trade had been incorrectly printed. 
He called Rooker, the head man in the printing 
department, and asked fiercely what man set the 
type for this printing, showing him the mistake. 
Rooker told him, and went to get the culprit, 



Horace Greeley 65 

whom Greeley said deserved to be kicked. But 
when he came, he brought Mr. Greeley's article 
in his own writing, and showed him that the 
mistake was his own. Mr. Greeley acknow- 
ledged he was the guilty one, and begging the man's 
pardon, added, " Tom Rooker, come here and 
kick me quick." 

3. Once when Greeley was making one of his 
frequent visits to Mr. and Mrs. Storrs, the widow 
of the minister who used to preach at Mansfield, 
Connecticut, when Mr. Storrs was a boy, had been 
invited by him to spend a week. She was a timid 
little woman, but she became so shocked at 
several things that Greeley had said or written in 
his paper that she inquired of Miss Proctor if 
she thought Mr. Greeley would allow her to ask 
him two or three questions. 

Miss Proctor found him in the dining-room, the 
floor strewn with exchange papers, and having 
secured his consent, ushered in the lady. She 
told me afterward that she heard the poor little 
questioner speak with a rising inflection only two 
or three times. But Mr. Greeley was always ready 
to answer at length and with extreme earnestness. 
He said afterwards: "Why that woman is way 
back in the Middle Ages." 

When she came away from the interview, she 
5 



66 Memories and Anecdotes 

seemed excited and dazed, not noticing anyone, 
but dashed upstairs to her room, closed the door, 
and never afterward alluded to her attempt to 
modify Mr. Greeley's views. 

4. A little girl who was visiting Mr. Storrs said : 
"It would never do for Mr. Greeley to go to Con- 
gress, he would make such a slitter-slatter of the 
place." 

Miss Proctor published A Russian Journey after 
travelling through that country; has published a 
volume of poems, and has made several appeals in 
prose and verse for the adoption of the Indian 
com as our national emblem. She is also desirous 
to have the name of Mount Rainier changed to 
Tacoma, its original Indian name, and has a 
second book of poems ready for the press. 

When I first met her at the home of Mrs. Storrs, 
I thought her one of the most beautiful women I 
had ever seen — of the Andalusian type — dark hair 
and lustrous starry eyes, beautiful features, per- 
fect teeth, a slender, willowy figure, and a voice 
so musical that it would lure a bird from the 
bough. She had a way all her own of "telling" 
you a poem. She was perfectly natural about it, 
a recitative semi-tone yet full of expression and 
dramatic breadth, at times almost a chant. With 
those dark and glowing eyes looking into mine, I 



Edna Dean Proctor 67 

have listened until I forgot everything about me, 
and was simply spellbound. Mr. Fields described 
Tennyson's reciting his own poems in much the 
same way. Whittier once said to a friend, "I 
consider Miss Proctor one of the best woman 
poets of the day," and then added, "But why do 
I say one of the best ; why not the best? " 

Miss Proctor has always been glad to assist any 
plan of mine, and wrote a poem especially for my 
Christmas book. Purple and Gold. Mr. Osgood, 
the publisher, when I showed him the poem, said, 
"But how do I know that the public will care for 
your weeds?" (referring to the asters and golden- 
rod). He said later: "The instant popularity and 
large sale of that booklet attested the happiness 
of Miss Sanborn's selection, and the kind contri- 
butions from her friends." Miss Proctor's contri- 
bution was the first poem in the book and I 
venture to publish it as it has never been in print 
since the first sale. My friend's face is still 
beautiful, her mind is as active as when we first 
met, her voice has lost none of its charm, and 
she is the same dear friend as of yore. 

GOLDENROD AND ASTERS 

The goldcnrod, the goldenrod, 
That glows in sun or rain, 



68 Memories and Anecdotes 

Waving its plumes on every bank 

From the mountain slope to the main, — 

Not dandelions, nor cowslips fine, 
Nor buttercups, gems of summer, 

Nor leagues of daisies yellow and white. 
Can rival this latest comer! 

On the plains and the upland pastures 

Such regal splendour falls 
When forth, from myriad branches green, 

Its gold the south wind calls, — 
That the tale seems true the red man's god 

Lavished its bloom to say, 
"Though days grow brief and suns grow cold, 

My love is the same for aye. " 

And, darker than April violets 

Or pallid as wind-flowers grow. 
Under its shades from hill to meadow 

Great beds of asters blow. — 
Oh plots of purple o'erhung with gold 

That need nor walls nor wardens, 
Not fairer shone, to the Median Queen, 

Her Babylonian gardens! 

On Scotia's moors the gorse is gay, 

And England's lanes and fallows 
Are decked with broom whose winsome grace 

The hovering linnet hallows ; 
But the robin sings from his maple bow, 

"Ah, linnet, lightly won, 
Your bloom to my blaze of wayside gold 

Is the wan moon to the sun!" 



Edna Dean Proctor 69 

And were I to be a bride at morn, 

Ere the chimes rang out I'd say, 
"Not roses red, but goldenrod 

Strew in my path today! 
And let it brighten the dusky aisle, 

And flame on the altar-stair, 
Till the glory and light of the fields shall flood 

The solemn dimness there." 

And should I sleep in my shroud at eve, 

Not lilies pale and cold, 
But the purple asters of the wood 

Within my hand I'd hold; — 
For goldenrod is the flower of love 

That time and change defies ; 
And asters gleam through the autumn air 

With the hues of Paradise ! 

Edna Dean Proctor. 

Shortly before the Civil War, I went with father 
to St. Louis, he to take a place in the Washington 
University, while I was offered a position in the 
Mary Institute to teach classes of girls. Chan- 
cellor Hoyt of the university had been lured from 
Exeter, New Hampshire. He was widely known 
in the educational world, and was one of the most 
brilliant men I ever knew, strong, wise, witty, 
critical, scholarly, with a scorn of anything super- 
ficial or insincere. 

I had thought of omitting my experience in this 
city, to me so really tragic. Just before we were 



70 Memories and Anecdotes 

to leave Hanover, a guest brought five of us a 
gift of measles. I had the confluent-virulent- 
delirious-lose-all-your-hair variety. When con- 
valescent, I found that my hair, which had been 
splendidly thick and long, was coming out alarm- 
ingly, and it was advised that my head be shaved, 
with a promise that the hair would surely be curly 
and just as good as before the illness. I felt pretty 
measly and ' ' meachin ' ' and submitted. The effect 
was indescribably awful. I saw my bald pate 
once, and almost fainted. I was provided with a 
fearsome wig, of coarse, dark red hair, held in 
place by a black tape. Persons who had pitied 
me for having " such a big head and so much hair" 
now found reason for comment "on my small head 
with no hair." The most expensive head cover 
never deceived anyone, however simple, and I 
was obliged to make my debut in St. Louis in this 
piteous plight. 

We then had our first taste of western-southern 
cordiality and demonstrativeness. It occurred to 
me that they showed more delight in welcoming us 
than our own home folks showed regret at our 
departure. It was a liberal education to me. 
They all seemed to understand about the hideous 
wig, but never showed that they noticed it. One 
of our first callers was a popular, eloquent 



Experiences at St. Louis 71 

clergyman, who kissed me "as the daughter of my 
mother." He said, "I loved your mother and 
asked her to marry me, but I was refused." 
Several young men at once wanted to get up a 
weekly dancing class for me, but I was timid, 
fearing my wig would fall off or get wildly askew. 
Whittier in one of his poems has this couplet, 
which suggests the reverse of my experience: 

*' She rose from her delicious sleep, 
And laid aside her soft-brown hair." 

At bedtime my wig must come off and a night- 
cap take the place. In the morning that wig must 
go on, with never one look in the glass. Soon 
two persons called, both leaders in social life, one 
of them a physician, who had suddenly lost every 
spear of hair. I was invited by the unfortunate 
physician and his wife to dine with them. And, 
in his own home, I noticed in their parlour a por- 
trait of him before his experience. He had been 
blessed with magnificently thick black hair, a 
handsome face, adorned with a full beard and 
moustache. It was an April evening and the 
weather was quite warm, and after dinner the 
doctor removed his wig, placing it on a plaster 
head. He was now used to his affliction. He told 
me, as he sat smoking, looking like a waxwork 



^2 Memories and Anecdotes 

figure, how several years ago he awoke in the 
dead of the night to find something he could not 
understand on his pillow. He roused his wife, lit 
the gas, dashed cold water on his face to help him 
to realize what had happened and washed off all the 
rest of his hair, even to eyebrows and eyelashes. 
That was a depressing story to me. And I soon 
met a lady (the Mayor's wife) who had suffered 
exactly in the same way. She also was resigned, 
as indeed she had to be. I began to tremble lest 
my own hair should never return. 

But I should be telling you about St. Louis. 
We were most cordially received by clergymen 
from three churches and all the professors at the 
university, and the trustees with their wives and 
daughters. Wyman Crow, a trustee, was the 
generous patron of Harriet Hosmer, whose Ze- 
nohia was at that time on exhibition there. The 
Mary Institute was founded in remembrance of 
Rev. Dr. Eliot's daughter Mary, who while skat- 
ing over one of the so-called "sink-holes," then 
existing about the city, broke the ice, fell in, and 
the body was never recovered. These sink holes 
were generally supposed to be imfathgmable. 

Since I could not dance, I took to art, although 
I had no more capacity in that direction than a 
cow. I attempted a bunch oi dahlias, but when I 



Experiences at St. Louis 73 

offered the result to a woman cleaning our rooms 
she looked at it queerly, held it at a distance, and 
then inquired: "Is the frame worth anything?" 

I acknowledge a lifelong indebtedness to Chancel- 
lor Hoyt. He was suffering fearfully with old- 
fashioned consumption, but he used to send for me 
to read to him to distract his thoughts. He would 
also criticize my conversation, never letting one 
word pass that was ungrammatical or incorrectly 
pronounced. If I said, " I am so glad, " he would 
ask, "So glad that what? You don't give the 
correlative." He warned against reliance on the 
aid of alliteration. The books read to him were dis- 
cussed and the authors praised or criticized. 

St. Louis was to me altogether deHghtful, and 
I still am interested in that city, so enlarged and 
improved. I used to see boys riding astride razor- 
back hogs in the street, where now stately limou- 
sines glide over smooth pavements. 

I have always had more cordiality towards 
strangers, homesick students at Dartmouth, and 
the audiences at my lectures, since learning a 
better habit. Frigidity and formality were driven 
away by the sunshine that brightened my stay at 
St. Louis. 

I do not wish to intrude my private woes, but 
I returned from the West with a severe case of 



74 Memories and Anecdotes 

whooping-cough, I didn't get it at St. Louis, but 
in the sleeping-car between that city and Chicago. 
I advise children to see to it that both parents get 
through with all the vastly unpleasant epidemics 
of childhood at an early age. It is one of the duties 
of children to parents. 



CHAPTER III 

Happy Days with Mrs. Botta — My Busy Life in New York — 
President Barnard of Columbia College — A Surprise from 
Bierstadt — ^Professor Doremus, a Universal Genius — Charles 
H. Webb, a truly funny "Funny Man" — Mrs. Esther Her- 
mann, a Modest Giver. 

I WAS obliged to give up my work at Packer 
Institute, when diphtheria attacked me, but a 
wonderful joy came to me after recovery. 

Mrs. Vincenzo Botta invited me to her home in 
West Thirty-seventh Street for the winter and 
spring. Anne C. Lynch, many years before her 
marriage to Mr. Botta, had taught at the 
Packer Institute herself, and at that time had 
a few rooms on West Ninth Street. She told 
me she used to take a hurried breakfast stand- 
ing by the kitchen table; then saying good-bye 
to the mother to whom she was devoted, walked 
from Ninth Street to the Brooklyn ferry, then 
up Joralemon Street, as she was required to 
be present at morning prayers. Her means 
were limited at that time and carfare would 
take too much. But it was then that she started 

75 



76 Memories and Anecdotes 

and maintained her "Saturday Evenings," which 
became so attractive and famous that N. P. WiUis 
wrote of them that no one of any distinction 
thought a visit to New York complete without 
spending a Saturday evening with Miss Lynch. 
People went in such numbers that many were 
obliged to sit on the stairs, but all were happy. 
Her refreshments were of the simplest kind, lemon- 
ade and wafers or sandwiches. It has often been 
said that she established the only salon in this 
country, but why bring in that word so distinc- 
tively belonging to the French? 

Miss Lynch was just ' * at home ' ' and made all who 
came to her happy and at their best. Fredrika 
Bremer, the celebrated Norwegian writer, was her 
guest for several weeks at her home in Ninth Street. 
Catherine Sedgwick attended several of her recep- 
tions, wondering at the charm which drew so many. 
There Edgar Poe gave the first reading of "The 
Raven" before it was printed. Ole Bull, who 
knew her then, was a life-long friend to her. 
Fanny Kemble, Bryant, Halleck, Willis were all 
devoted friends. 

After her marriage to Professor Vincenzo Botta, 
nephew of the historian Botta, and their taking 
a house in Thirty-seventh Street, she gathered 
around her table the most interesting and distin- 



Mrs. Botta 77 

guished men and women of the day, and the 
' ' Saturday Evenings " were continued with increas- 
ing crowds. She had a most expressive face and 
beautiful blue eyes. Never one of the prodigious 
talkers, dressed most quietly, she was just herself, 
a sweet-faced, sincere woman, and was blessed with 
an atmosphere and charm that were felt by all. 

At one of her breakfasts I recollect Emerson, who 
often visited there, Bryant, Bayard Taylor, and 
Grace Greenwood. At another, John Fiske, Presi- 
dent Andrew D. White, and other men interested in 
their line of thought. I must mention a lady who 
in the midst of their inspiring conversation broke 
forth in a loud tone to Mrs. Botta: "I found a 
splendid receipt for macaroni; mix it, when boiled, 
with stewed tomatoes and sprinkle freely with 
parmesan cheese before baking. " 

One evening Whitelaw Reid brought John Hay. 
He beckoned to me to come to him, and presenting 
Mr. Hay said: "I want to make a prediction in 
regard to this young man. If you live long enough 
you will hear of him as the greatest statesman 
and diplomat our country has ever had. " A few 
evenings after, at a Dramatic Club of great talent, 
I saw Mr. Hay figuring as Cupid in Mrs. Jarley's 
wax-work show. He looked and acted his part, 
turning gracefully on his toes to show his wings 



78 Memories and Anecdotes 

and quiver of arrows. And Mr. Reid, mounted on 
a step-ladder behind a draped clothes-horse, repre- 
sented the distressed Lord UUin whose daughter 
was seen eloping in a boat with her Highland chief, 
the tossing waves being sheets in full motion. 

For years it seemed as if this were the one truly 
cosmopolitan drawing-room in the city, because it 
drew the best from all sources. Italy and England, 
France and Germany, Spain, Russia, Norway and 
Hungary, Siam, China, India, and Japan sent 
guests hither. Liberals and Conservatives, peers 
and revolutionists, holders of the most ancient 
traditions, and advocates of the most modern 
theories — all found their welcome, if they deserved 
it, and each took away a new respect for the posi- 
tion of his opponent. 

Madame Ristori, Salvini, Fechter, CampaninI, 
and Madame Gerster were honoured with special 
receptions. Special receptions were also given in 
honour of George P. Marsh, on the occasion of his 
appointment as Minister to Turin in 1861, and to 
the officers of the Royal Navy of Italy when they 
came to this country to take possession of two 
frigates built by an American ship-builder for the 
Italian Government. 

Emerson appreciated Mrs. Botta as a hostess. 
He enjoyed being in her home, saying it "rested 




MRS. ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA 



Mrs. Rotta 79 

him," "I wish that I could beheve that in your 
miles of palaces were many houses and house- 
keepers as excellent as I know at 25 West 37th 
Street, your house with the expanding doors." 
He speaks of her invitation as "one of the happiest 
rainbows." "Your hospitality has an Arabian 
memory, to keep its kind purpose through such a 
long time. You were born under Hatem Yayi's 
own star, and like him, are the genius of hospital- 
ity. " (Haten Yayi was a celebrated Oriental 
whose house had sixteen doors.) 

And Mrs. Botta was greatly cheered by Emer- 
son. She wrote: 

I alwa3^s wish I had had my photograph taken when 
Mr. Emerson was staying in my house. Everyone 
felt his influence, even the servants who would hardly 
leave the dining-room. I looked like a different being, 
and was so happy I forgot to see that he had enough 
to eat. 

Early in her time some of her friends — such as 
Ripley, Curtis, and Cranch — had joined a small 
agricultural and educational association, called 
the "Brook Farm," near Roxbury, Massachusetts. 
She visited them once or twice, and saw Mr. Curtis 
engaged in washing dishes which had been used 
by "The Community." She remarked to him 
that perhaps he could be better employed for the 



8o Memories and Anecdotes 

progress of his fellow-men than in wasting his 
energy on something more easily done by others. 

At one time she invited Bronson Alcott, one of 
the leaders of a similar movement, to preside over 
some conversazioni in her parlours, where he could 
elucidate his favourite subject. On one occasion, 
a lady in the audience, impressed by some senti- 
ments uttered by the lecturer, inquired of him if 
his opinion was that we were gods. "No," an- 
swered Mr. Alcott, "we are not gods, but only 
godlings, " an explanation which much amused 
Mrs. Botta, who was always quick in perceiving 
the funny side of a remark. (I timidly suggest 
that s be substituted for d.) 

Mrs. Botta having promised to see Mr. Greeley, 
and urge him to give a favourable notice in the 
Tribune of the concert where a young singer was to 
make her debut, went down to his office to plead 
for a lenient criticism. But not one word ap- 
peared. So down she went to inquire the reason. 
She was ushered into the Editor's Sanctum, where 
he was busily writing and hardly looked up. She 
asked why he was so silent; it was such a disap- 
pointment. No reply. She spoke once more. 
Then came the verdict in shrill tones: "She can't 
sing. She can't sing. She can't sing. " 

New Year's calls were then the custom, and more 



Mrs. Botta 8i 

than three hundred men paid their respects to Mr. 
and Mrs. Botta on the New Year's Day I spent 
with them. And everyone looked, as Theodore 
Hook said, as if he were somebody in particular. 
At one of these "Saturday Evenings," a stranger 
walked through her rooms, with hands crossed 
under his coat and humming execrably as he wan- 
dered along. The gentle hostess went to him with 
her winning smile and inquired, "Do you play 
also ? " That proves her capacity for sarcasm and 
criticism which she seldom employed. She con- 
versed remarkably well, but after all it was what 
she did not say that proved her greatness and self- 
control. 

Mrs. Botta had talent in various directions. 
She made portrait busts in plaster that really 
were like the subjects, with occasionally an in- 
spired success, and that without any teaching. 
She showed genius in this work. When a bust of 
her modelling was sent to Rome to be put into 
marble, the foremost of Italian sculptors, not 
knowing the maker, declared that nothing would 
be beyond the reach of the artist if he would come 
to Rome and study technique for a year. Mrs. 
Botta asked me to let her try to get my face. 
That was delightful. To be with her in her own 
studio and watch her interest! Later some dis- 



82 Memories and Anecdotes 

couragement, and then enthusiasm as at last the 
Hkeness caine. She said she took the humorous 
side of my face. The other side she found sad. 
My friends not only recognized my face, but they 
saw my mother's face inwrought. 

Mrs. Botta had talent in various directions. 
She published a large book, The Hand Book of 
Universal Literature, once used at Harvard and 
other colleges, and hoped to prepare one of similar 
style on Universal History. She also wTote a small 
volume of poems, but her days were given to the 
needs of others. Only a few mornings were we able 
to work on her Universal History. There were too 
many calls for advice, sympathy, or aid ; the door- 
bell rang too often. I heard a young girl once say 
of her: "She is great enough to have been an 
inspired prophetess of olden times, and tender 
enough to have been the mother of our Dear Sav- 
iour. " Such were the words of impassioned praise 
that fell from the lips of a young, motherless, 
Roman Catholic girl, one of the many whom Mrs. 
Botta had taught and befriended. Once, when 
reading to Mrs. Botta in connection with her 
"History," a man called to see her about getting 
material for her biography. To my suiprise, she 
waved her hand to me saying, "This young lady is 
to be ni}- biographer. " As I felt entirely unable to 



Mrs. Botta 83 

attempt such a work I told her it vshould be made up 
of letters from a host of friends who had known her 
so well and so long. This pleased her, and after 
her death her husband wrote me urging me to edit 
such a composite picture, but knowing his superior 
fitness for the work, I thanked him for the compli- 
ment, but declined. What a delightful result was 
accomplished by his good judgment, Hterary skill, 
and the biographical notes gladly given by her 
intimate friends. I will give a few quotations 
from the tributes : 

To me — as to others — her conversation was singu- 
larly inspiring; it suggested to a man his best trains of 
thought; it developed in him the best he had; it made 
him think better of himself and of mankind; it sent 
him away stronger for all good work. 

She seemed to me capable of worshipping in equal 
fervour with Roman Catholics or with Unitarians — in 
a cathedral or in a hovel; and this religious spirit of 
hers shone out in her life and in her countenance. 
Very pleasant was her optimism; she looked about her 
in this world without distrust, and beyond her into 
the next world without fear. 

She had a delightful sense of humour — so sweet, so 
delicate, so vivid. She had a gift of appreciation 
which I have never seen surpassed. 

If Mrs. Botta found more in society than most per- 
sons do, it was because she carried more there. 



84 Memories and Anecdotes 

Horace Greeley once said to me, "Anne Lynch 
is the best woman that God ever made. " 

Few women known to me have had greater grace 
or ease in the entertainment of strangers, while in her 
more private intercourse, her frank, intelligent, cour- 
teous ways won her the warmest and most desirable 
friendships. 

The position of the Bottas in the literary and artistic 
world enabled them to draw together not only the best- 
known people of this country, but to a degree greater 
than any, as far as I know, the most distinguished visi- 
tors from abroad, beyond the ranks of mere title or 
fashion. No home, I think, in all the land compared 
with theirs in the number and character of its foreign 
visitors. 

I should like to introduce you to her home as it 
was — the hall, with its interesting pictures and fra- 
grant with fresh flowers; the dining-room, the drawing- 
rooms, with their magnetized atmosphere of the past 
(you can almost feel the presence of those who have 
loved to linger there); her own sanctum, where a 
chosen few were admitted ; but the limits of space for- 
bid. The queens of Parisian salons have been praised 
and idealized till we are led to believe them unap- 
proachable in their social altitude. But I am not 
afraid to place beside them an American woman, un- 
crowned by extravagant adulation, but fully their equal 
■ — the artist, poet, conversationist, Anne C. L. Botta. 

She was absolutely free from egotism or conceit, 
always avoiding allusion to what she had accom- 



Mrs. Botta 85 

plished, or her unfulfilled longings. But she once 
told me : 

Sandy (short for old, red sand stone), I would rather 
have had a child than to have made the most perfect 
statue or the finest painting ever produced. [She 
also said]: If I could only stop longing and aspiring 
for that which is not in my power to attain, but is 
only just near enough to keep me always running after 
it, like the donkey that followed an ear of corn which 
was tied fast to a stick. 

Mrs. Botta came of a Celtic father, gay, humor- 
ous, full of impulsive chivalry and intense Irish 
patriotism, and of a practical New England mother, 
herself of Revolutionary stock, clear of judgment, 
careful of the household economy, upright, exem- 
plary, and "facultied. " In the daughter these 
inherited qualities blended in a most harmonious 
whole. Grant Allen, the scientific writer, novelist, 
and student of spiritualistic phenomena, thinks 
that racial differences often combine to produce a 
genius. 

I often think of that rarely endowed friend in full 
faith that she now has the joys denied her here, and 
that her many-sided nature is allowed progress, 
full and free and far, in many directions. I am 
also sure that Heaven could not be Heaven to Mrs. 
Botta if she were not able to take soul flights and 
use wireless telegraphy to still help those she left 



86 Memories and Anecdotes 

behind, and hope that she can return to greet and 
guide us as we reach the unknown land. 

Through the kind suggestions of Mrs. Botta, 
I was asked to give talks on literary matters at the 
house of one of New York's most influential citi- 
zens. This I enjoyed immensely. Soon the large 
drawing-rooms were too small for the numbers who 
came. Next we went to the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association, to the library there, and later 
I decided to engage the church parlours in Doctor 
Howard Crosby's Church, Fourth Avenue and 
Twenty-second Street, New York. When I real- 
ized my audacious venture, I was frightened. 
Ten lectures had been advertised and some not 
written ! 

On the day for my first lecture the rain poured 
down, and I felt sure of a failure. My sister went 
with me to the church. As we drew near I 
noticed a string of carriages up and down the 
avenue. ' ' There must be a wedding or a funeral, 
I whispered, feeling more in the mood -of the latter, 
but never dreaming how much those carriages 
meant to me. As I went timidly into the room I 
found nearly every seat full, and was greeted with 
cordial applause. My sister took a seat beside me. 
My subject was "Spinster Authors of England." 
My hands trembled so visibly that I laid my manu- 



Mrs. Botta 87 

script on the table, but after getting in magnetic 
touch with those before me, I did not mind. 

The reading occupied only one hour, and after- 
wards I was surrounded by New Hampshire women 
and New Yorkers who congratulated me warmly. 
There were reporters sent from seven of the best 
daily papers, whom I found sharpening their 
pencils expectantly. They gave correct and com- 
plimentary notices, and my success was now 
assured. 

Mr. James T. Fields not only advised his New 
York friends to hear me, but came himself, bring- 
ing my father who was deeply gratified. Mr. 
Fields told father that I had a remarkably choice 
audience, among the best in the city. My father 
had felt very deeply, even to tears, the sharp, nar- 
row and adverse criticism of one of his associates 
who considered that I unsexed myself by daring to 
speak in public, and who advised strongly against 
encouraging me in such unwomanly behaviour. 

I was a pioneer as a lecturer on literature quite 
unconsciously, for I had gone along so gradually 
that I did not realize it — taken up and set down in 
a new place with no planning on my part. 

Invited by many of the citizens of Hanover, New 
Hampshire, my old home, to go there and give my 
lecture on "Lady Morgan," the Irish novelist, for 



88 Memories and Anecdotes 

the purpose of purchasing a new carpet for the 
Congregational Church, I was surprised to feel 
again the same stem opposition; I was not per- 
mitted to speak in the church, but immediately 
was urged to accept the large recitation hall of the 
Scientific School. It was crowded to the doors and 
the college boys climbed up and swarmed about the 
windows. The carpet, a dark red ingrain, was 
bought, put down, and wore well for years. 

Now came a busy life. I was asked to lecture 
in man}^ places near New York, always in delight- 
ful homes. Had a class of married ladies at the 
home of Dr. J. G. Holland, where I gave an idea of 
the newest books. Doctor Holland gave me a de- 
partment, "Bric-a-brac," in his magazine — Scrih- 
ner's Magazine; and I was honoured by a request 
from the editors of the Galaxy to take the "Club 
Room " from which Alark Twain had just resigned. 
Meeting him soon after at a dinner, he said with 
his characteristic drawl: "Awful solemn, ain't it, 
having to be funny every month; worse than a 
funeral. " I started a class in my own apartment 
to save time for ladies who wanted to know about 
the most interesting books as they were published, 
but whose constant engagements made it impossible 
to read them entirely for themselves. I suggested 
to the best publishers to send me copies of their 



Life in New York 89 

attractive publications which I would read, con- 
dense, and then talk them over with these friends. 
All were glad to aid me. Their books were piled 
on my piano and tables, and many were sold. I 
want to say that such courtesy was a rare compli- 
ment. I used to go to various book stores, asking 
permission to look over books at a special reading 
table, and never met a refusal. I fear in these 
days of aiding the war sufferers, and keeping our 
bodies limber and free from rheumatism by daily 
dancing, this plan would not find patrons. 

I was often "browsing," as they call it, at the 
Mercantile Library. At first I would sit down and 
give the names of volumes desired. That took too 
long. At last I was allowed to go where I liked 
and take what I wanted. I sent a pair of hand- 
some slippers at Christmas to the man who had 
been my special servitor. He wrote me how he 
admired them and wished he could wear them, but 
alas! his feet had both been worn to a stub long 
ago from such continuous running and climbing to 
satisfy my seldom-satisfied needs. He added that 
several of the errand boys had become permanently 
crippled from over-exertion. I then understood 
why he had married a famous woman doctor. It 
is hard to get the books asked for in very large 
libraries. Once I was replying to an attack on Miss 



90 Memories and Anecdotes 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's style by Miss Dodge, 
well known under the pen name Gail Hamilton, 
and I gave this order: "Complete works of Miss 
Abigail Dodge — and please hurry." After intol- 
erable waiting, two boys appeared looking very 
weary, bearing the many sermons and heavy 
memoirs of the Reverend Narcissus Dodge. 

In my special class at home I begged my friends 
to ask questions in an off-hand way, and to com- 
ment upon my opinions. That was stimulating to 
all. One morning my theme was "Genius and 
Talent." I said Genius was something beyond 
— outside of — ourselves, which achieved great 
results with small exertion. Not by any means 
was it a bit of shoemakers' wax in the seat of one's 
chair (as Anthony Trollope put it). Talent must 
work hard and constantly forr development. I said : 
"Genius is inspiration; Talent is perspiration." 
I had never heard that definition and thought it 
was mine. Of late it has been widely quoted, but 
with no acknowledgment, so I still think it is 
mine. Are there any other claimants — and prior 
to 1880? 

There were many questions and decided differ- 
ences of opinion. At last one lady said: "Please 
give us examples of men who possess genius rather 
than talent. " As she spoke, the door opened, and 



Life in New York 91 

in walked Mrs. Edmund Clarence Stedman, wife 
of the poet, and with her a most distinguished- 
looking woman, Mrs. William Whitney. I was 
a little embarrassed, but replied sweetly, "Sheets 
and Kelley, " meaning "Keats and Shelley." 
Then followed a wild laugh in which I joined. 

Dr. John Lord once told me he had a similar 
shock. He spoke of "Westford and Oxminster, " 
instead of "Oxford and Westminster," and never 
again could he get it correctly, try as he would. 
Neither his twist nor mine was quite as bad as 
that of the speaker who said : " I feel within me a 
half -warmed fish; I mean a half -formed wish." 

All genius [continued Lady Henrietta], whether it 
is artistic, or literary, or spiritual, is something given 
from outside. I once heard genius described as know- 
ing by intuition what other people know by experience. 

Something, or, I should say, somebody, for it in- 
volves intelligence and knowledge, tells you these 
things, and you just can't help expressing them in 
your own particular way, with brush, or pen, or voice, 
whatever your individual instrument may be. 

From Patricia by Hon. Mrs. Robert Hamilton. 

It was a pleasure to see that my theory of Genius 
was the same as Lady Henrietta's in that charming 
book Patricia. I have enough collected on that 
subject to give me shivers of amazement as I read 



92 Memories and Anecdotes 

the mass of testimony. The mystery of Inspira- 
tion has always enthralled me. 

I was invited to so many evenings "at home," 
dinners and luncheons, that I decided to recipro- 
cate and be surely at home on Tuesday evenings. 
These affairs were very informal and exceedingly 
enjoyable. There were many who gladly enter- 
tained us by their accomplishments. Champney 
the artist, sent after blackboard and chalk, and 
did wonderfully clever things. Some one de- 
scribed a stiff and stupid reception where everyone 
seemed to have left themselves at home. Those 
who came to me brought their best. Mrs. Barnard, 
wife of President Barnard of Columbia College, 
urged me to give three lectures in her parlour. I 
could not find the time, but her house was always 
open to me. To know Mr. Barnard was a great 
privilege. When called to Columbia, it was appar- 
ently dying from starvation for new ideas, and 
stagnant from being too conservative and deep 
in set grooves. His plans waked up the sleepers 
and brought constant improvements. Though 
almost entirely deaf, he was never morose or de- 
pressed, but always cheerful and courageous. I 
used to dine with them often. Tubes from each 
guest extended into one through which he could 
hear quite well. He delighted in discussion of 




PRESIDENT BARNARD OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE 



Life in New York 93 

current events, historical matters, politics of the 
day, and was apparently well informed on every 
question. Unlike Harriet Martineau, who always 
put down her trumpet when anyone dared to dis- 
agree with her opinions, he dehghted in a friendly 
controversy with anyone worthy of his steel. He 
fought with patience and persistence for the rights 
of women to have equal education with men, and 
at last gained his point, but died before Barnard 
College was in existence. Every student of Bar- 
nard ought to realize her individual indebtedness 
to this great educator, regarding him as the 
champion of women and their patron saint. 

He was blessed in his home life. Mrs. Barnard 
was his shield, sunshine, and strength. 



Studio, 1 271 Broadway, 
corner 3 2d Street. 
April 8, 1887. 

Dear Miss Sanborn: 

I send you "Ovis Montana" or Mountain Sheep, 
who never enjoyed the daily papers or devoured a 
scrap of poetry. The only civilized thing he ever did 
was to give his life for a piece of cold lead and got 
swindled at that. 

To be grafted in your Album is immortality. 
Sincerely yours, 

Albert Bierstadt. 



94 Memories and Anecdotes 

This gift was a big surprise to me. I was then 
corresponding with two Boston papers and one in 
the West. I thought it discourteous in the artists 
of the new Impressionist school, to sneer a little 
at Bierstadt's great paintings, as if he could ever 
be set back as a bye-gone or a has-been. And it 
gave me great pleasure to say so. I sent several 
letters to him, and one day I received a card asking 
me to call at his studio to look over some sketches. 
He said he wanted me to help him to select a sketch 
out of quite a pile on the table, as he wished to 
make a painting of one for a friend. I assured him 
I did not know enough to do that, but he insisted 
he was so busy that I must tell him which I thought 
would be most effective. I looked at every one, 
feeling quite important, and at last selected the 
Mountain Sheep poised on a high peak in a striking 
pose. A rare sight then. 

At Christmas that splendid picture painted by 
Bierstadt was sent to our apartment for me. 
Never before had I received such appreciation for 
my amateur scribbling. 

Ah, me! I was both complimented and proud. 
But my humiliation soon came. When I called to 
thank the kind donor and speak of the fine frame 
the mountain big-horn was now in, I was surprised 
to have Mr. Bierstadt present to me a tall, dis- 



A Big Surprise 95 

tinguished-looking foreigner as Munkacsy, the 
well-known Hungarian artist. He was most cor- 
dial, saying in French that he was glad to meet an 
American woman who could doubtless answer 
many questions he was anxious to ask. I could 
only partially get his meaning, so Bierstadt trans- 
lated it to me. And I, who could read and trans- 
late French easily, had never found time to learn 
to chat freely in any language but my own. I 
could have cried right there; it was so mortifying, 
and I was losing such a pleasure. I had the same 
pathetic experience with a Russian artist, Verest- 
chagin, whose immense picture, reveaHng the 
horrors of war, was then on exhibition in New 
York. 

Again and again I have felt like a dummy, if not 
an idiot, in such a position. I therefore beg all 
young persons to determine to speak and write at 
least one language beside their own. 

Tom Hood wrote : 

"Never go to France 
Unless you know the lingo 
If you do, like me, 
You'll repent by jingo." 

But it's even worse to be unable in your own 
country to greet and talk with guests from other 
countries. 



96 Memories and Anecdotes 

I should like to see the dead languages, as well 
as Saxon and Sanscrit, made elective studies 
every where; also the higher mathematics, mystic 
metaphysics, and studies of the conscious and sub- 
conscious, the ego and non-ego, matters of such 
uncertain study. When one stops to realize the 
tragic brevity of life on this earth, and to learn 
from statistics what proportion of each generation 
dies in infancy, in childhood, in early maturity, 
and how few reach the Biblical limit of life, it 
seems unnecessary to regard a brain-wearying 
' ' curriculum " as essential or even sensible. Taine 
gives us in his work on English Literature a Saxon 
description of life: "A bird flying from the dark, 
a moment in the light, then swiftly passing out 
into the darkness beyond. " 

And really why do we study as if we were to 
rival the ante-diluvians in age. Then wake up to 
the facts. I have been assured, by those who 
know, that but a small proportion of college grad- 
uates are successful or even heard of. They 
appear at commencement, sure that they are to do 
great things, make big money, at least marry an 
heiress; they are turned out like buttons, only to 
find out how hard it is to get anything to do for 
good pay. One multi-millionaire of Boston, whose 
first wages he told me were but four dollars a month, 



Dr. R. Oo:den Doremus 97 



& 



said there was no one he so dreaded to see coming 
into his office as a college man who must have help, 
— seldom able to write a legible hand, or to add 
correctly a column of figures. There is soHd food 
for thought. 

Lowell said that "great men come in clusters." 
That is true, but it is equally true that once in a 
great while, we are vouchsafed a royal guest, a 
man who mingles freely with the ordinary throng, 
yet stands far above them; a man who can wrest 
the primal secrets from nature's closed hand, who 
makes astounding discoveries, only to gladly 
disclose them to others. 

Such an unusual genius was Professor Robert 
Ogden Doremus, whose enthusiasm was only 
matched by his modesty. In studying what he 
accomplished, I wonder whether he was not sent 
from the central yet universal "powers that be" 
to give us answers to some of the riddles of life; 
or had he visited so many planets further advanced 
than our own— for as Jean Paul Richter wrote 
"There is no end" — that he had learned that the 
supposedly impossible could be done. He as- 
sisted John W. Draper in taking the first photo- 
graph of the human face ever made. Science with 
him was never opposed to religion. His moving 



98 Memories and Anecdotes 

pictures and spectral analysis were almost miracles 
at that time. He delighted to show how the earth 
in forming was flattened at the poles, and he would 
illustrate the growth of the rings of Saturn. As 
a lecturer he was a star, the only chemist and 
scientist to offer experiments. His lectures were 
always attended by crowds of admirers. As a 
toxicologist he was marvellous in his accuracy; no 
poisoner could escape his exact analysis. His 
compressed cartridges, made waterproof and coated 
with collodion, were used in the blasting operations 
at the Mont Cenis tunnel through eight miles of 
otherwise impenetrable stone, solid Alpine rock, 
between France and Italy. 

When the obelisk in Central Park showed signs 
of serious decay, he saved the hieroglyphics by 
ironing it with melted parafine. He makes us 
think of the juggler who can keep a dozen balls in 
the air as if it were an easy trick, never dropping 
one. 

But I forget to give my own memories of Dr. and 
Mrs. Doremus in their delightful home on Fourth 
Avenue between i8th and 19th Streets, — a home 
full of harmony, melody, peace, and love. Vin- 
cenzo Botta called Dr. Doremus the "Maecenas 
of New York," and his beautiful wife, the ideal 
wife and mother, was named by her adoring hus- 




PROFESSOR R. OGDEN DOREMUS 



Dr. R. Ogden Doremus 99 

band the "queen of women." Mrs. Doremus 
was prominent in New York's various societies 
and charities, but the interests of her own family- 
came first. One of her sons said: "She never 
neglected her children; we were always loved and 
well cared for." Both Dr. Doremus and his 
wife were devoted to music, always of the best. 
He was the first president of the Philharmonic 
Society who was not a musician by profession. 
All the preceding presidents had been selected 
from the active musicians in the society. One 
evening he was serenaded by the Philharmonic 
Society under the leadership of Carl Bergman, 
the recently elected president of the society. 
After the classic music had ceased, Dr. Dore- 
mus appeared and thanked the society for the 
compliment. All were invited into the house, 
where a bountiful collation was served and 
speeches made. If you could see the photograph 
of the Philharmonic Society serenading Dr. and 
Mrs. Doremus at their home, you would get a rare 
insight into the old New York life, as compared 
with the present, in which such a thing would be 
impossible. He said that his mother used to take 
a cup of tea at the Battery afternoons with her 
sons. 

He was a lifelong friend of Christine Nilsson 



100 Memories and Anecdotes 

whom he considered the greatest vocal and dra- 
matic genius of the age. He wrote: "Never did 
mortal woman sing as she sang that simple song 
that begins : 

'Angels, Angels, bright and fair, 
Take, O take me to thy care!"* 

I saw Nilsson and Parepa introduced there, who 
were to sail on the same steamer in a few days. 
Nilsson made the banjo fashionable in New York 
society, accompanying herself charmingly. All 
the famous opera singers regarded the house of 
Dr. Doremus a place where they were thoroughly 
at home, and always welcome. Ole Bull was for 
many years his most devoted friend. Dr. Doremus 
writes : 

I recall that once when I was dining with Ole Bull, 
at the house of a friend, our host said: ' Doctor, I don't 
think much of Ole Bull's fiddling; you know what I 
mean — I don't think much of his fiddling as compared 
with his great heart.' 

Mr. Edwin Booth, once walking with me, 
dropped my arm and exclaimed with a dramatic 
gesture: "Ole Bull wasn't a man — he was a god!" 

The last time I had the privilege of listening to 
Ole Bull's witchery with his violin, he gave an 
hour to Norwegian folk-songs, his wife at the piano. 



Dr. R. Ogden Doremus loi 

She played with finish, feeling, and restraint. She 
first went through the air, then he joined in with 
his violin with indescribable charm. Critics said 
he lacked technique. I am glad he did : his music 
went straight to the heart. At the last he told us 
he would give the tune always played after a wed- 
ding when the guests had stayed long enough — 
usually three days — and their departure was de- 
sired. We were to listen for one shrill note which 
was imperative. No one would care or dare to 
remain after that. 

Dr. Doremus showed me one evening a watch 
he was wearing, saying: 

In Ole Bull's last illness when he no longer had 
strength to wind his watch, he asked his wife to wind 
it for him, and then send it to his best friend, saying : 
* I want it to go ticking from my heart to his. ' 

That watch magnetized by human love passing 
through it is now in the possession of Arthur Lis- 
penard Doremus, to whom it was left by his father. 
It had to be wound by a key in the old fashion, and 
it ran in perfect time for twenty-nine years. Then 
it became worn and was sent to a watchmaker for 
repairs. It is still a reliable timekeeper, quite a 
surprising story, as the greatest length of time 
before this was twenty-four years for a watch to 
run. 



102 Memories and Anecdotes 

I think of these rare souls, Ole Bull and Dr. 
Doremus, as reunited, and with their loved ones 
advancing to greater heights, constantly receiving 
new revelations of omnipotent power, which "it is 
not in the heart of man to conceive. " 

LINES 

Read at the Celebration of the Seventieth Birthday 
. of Doctor R. Ogden Doremus, January 
nth, 1894, at 241 Madison Avenue, by 
Luther R. Marsh. 

What shall be said for good Doctor Doremus? 
To speak of him well, it well doth beseem, us. 
Not one single fault, through his seventy years, 
Has ever been noticed by one of his peers. 

How flawless a life, and how useful withal ! , 

P ulfilling his duties at every call ! 

Come North or come South, come East or come West, 

He ever is ready to work for the best. 

In Chemics, the Doctor stands first on the list ; 
The nature, he knows, of all things that exist. 
He lets loose the spirits of earth, rock or water, 
And drives them through solids, cemented with mortar. 

How deftly he handles the retort and decanter ! 
Makes lightning and thunder would scare Tarn 

O'Shanter; 
Makes feathers as heavy as lead, in a jar. 
And eliminates spirits from coal and from tar. 



Dr. R. Ogden Doremus 103 

By a touch of his finger he'll turn lead or tin 
To invisible gas, and then back again; 
He will set them aflame, as in the last day, 
When all things are lit by the Sun's hottest ray. 

With oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, — all — 
No gas can resist his imperative call — 
He'll solidify, liquefy, or turn into ice; 
Or all of them re-convert, back in a trice. 

Amid oxides and alkalies, bromides and salts, 
He makes them all dance in a chemical waltz; 
And however much he with acids may play, 
There's never a drop stains his pure mortal clay. 

He well knows what things will affect one another; 
What acts as an enemy, and what as a brother; 
He feels quite at home with all chemic afTmities, 
And treats them respectfully, as mystic Divinities. 

His wisdom is spread from far Texas to Maine; 
For thousands on thousands have heard him explain 
The secrets of Nature, and all her arcana, 
From the youth of the Gulf, to the youth of Montana. 

In Paris, Doremus may compress'd powder compound, 
Or, at home, wrap the Obelisk with paraffine round; 
Or may treat Toxicology ever anew. 
To enrich the bright students of famous Bellevue. 

He believes in the spirits of all physical things, 
And can make them fly round as if they had wings; 
But ask him to show you the Spirit of Man — 
He hesitates slightly, saying, "See! — if you can." 



104 Memories and Anecdotes 

Wherever he comes there always is cheer; 
If absent, you miss him; you're glad when he's near; 
His voice is a trumpet that stirreth the blood ; 
You feel that he's cheery, and you know that he's 
good. 

No doors in the city have swung open so wide, 
To artists at home, and to those o'er the tide; 
As, to Mario, Sontag, Badiali, Marini, 
To Nilsson and Phillips, Rachel and Salvini. 

Much, much does he owe, for the grace of his life, 
To the influence ever of his beautiful wife; 
She, so grand and so stately, so true and so kind, 
So lovely in person and so charming in mind ! 

I had the pleasure of being well acquainted with 
Mr. Charles H. Webb, a truly funny "funny man, " 
who had homes in New York and Nantucket. His 
slight stutter only added to the effect of his hu- 
morous talk. His letters to the New York Tribune 
from Long Branch, Saratoga, etc., were widely 
read. He knew that he wrote absolute nonsense 
at times, but nonsense is greatly needed in this 
world, and exquisitely droll nonsensical nonsense 
is as uncommon as common sense. The titles of 
his various books are inviting and informing, as 
Seaweed and What We Seed. He wrote several 
parodies on sensational novels of his time. Griffith 
Gaunt, he made fun of as " Liffith Lank " ; St. Elmo, 
as "St. Twelmo. " A Wicked Woman was another 



Charles H. Webb 105 

absurd tale. But I like best a large volume, 
" John Paul's Book, moral and instructive, travels, 
tales, poetry, and like fabrications, with several 
portraits of the author and other spirited engrav- 
ings." This book was dedicated, "To the Bald- 
Headed, that noble and shining army of martyrs. " 
When you turn to look at his portrait, and the 
illuminated title page, you find them not. The 
Frontispiece picture is upside down. The very 
ridiculosity of his easy daring to do or say anything 
is taking. He once wrote, in one of those trying 
books, with which we used to be bored stiff, with 
questions such as ' ' What is your favourite hour of 
the day? He wrote dinner hour; what book not 
sacred would you part with last? My pocket- 
book. Your favourite motto? When you must, 
— you better." I especially liked the poem, 
"The Outside Dog in the Fight." Here are two 
specimens of his prose: 

The fish-hawk is not an eagle. Mountain heights 
and clouds he never scales; fish are more in his way, he 
scales them — possibly regarding them as scaly-wags. 
For my bird is pious; a stern conservator is he of the 
public morals. Last Sunday a frivolous fish was play- 
ing not far from the beach, and Dr. Hawk went out and 
stopped him. 'Tis fun to watch him at that sort of 
work — stopping play — though somehow it does not 
seem to amuse the fish much. Up in the air he poises 



io6 Memories and Anecdotes 

pensively, hanging on hushed wings as though listen- 
ing for sounds — maybe a fish's. By and by he hears 
a herring — is he hard of herring, think you? Then 
down he drops and soon has a Herring Safe. (Send 
me something, manufacturers, immediately.) Does 
he tear his prey from limb to limb? No, he merely 
sails away through the blue ether — how happy can he 
be with either! — till the limb whereon his own nest 
is built is reached. Does the herring enjoy that sort 
of riding, think you? Quite as much, I should say, 
as one does hack-driving. From my point of view, the 
hawk is but the hackman of the air. Sympathize with 
the fish ? Not much. Nor would you if you heard the 
pitiful cry the hawk sets up the moment he finds that 
his claws are tangled in a fish's back. Home he flies 
to seek domestic consolation, uttering the while the 
weeping cry of a grieved child; there are tears in his 
voice, so you know the fish must be hurting him. 
The idea that a hawk can't fly over the water of an 
afternoon without some malicious fish jumping up 
and trying to bite him ! 

If a fish wants to cross the water safely, let him take 
a Fulton ferryboat for it. There he will find a sign 
reading: 

"No Peddling or Hawking allowed in this cabin." 
Strange that hawking should be so sternly prohibited 
on boats which are mainly patronized by Brooklynites 
chronically afflicted with catarrh ! 

Never shall it be said that I put my hand to the 
plow and turned back. For that matter never shall 
it be said of me that I put hand to a plow at all, unless 
a plow should chase me upstairs and into the privacy 
of my bed-room, and then I should only put hand to it 



Charles H. Webb 107 

for the purpose of throwing it out of the window. 
The beauty of the farmer's life was never very clear 
to me. As for its boasted "independence," in the 
part of the country I came from, there was never a 
farm that was not mortgaged for about all it was 
worth; never a farmer who was not in debt up to his 
chin at " the store. " Contented! When it rains the 
farmer grumbles because he can't hoe or do something 
else to his crops, and when it does not rain, he grumbles 
because his crops do not grow. Hens are the only ones 
on a farm that are not in a perpetual worry and fer- 
ment about "crops:" they fill theirs with whatever 
comes along, whether it be an angleworm, a kernel of 
corn, or a small cobblestone, and give thanks just the 
same. 

THE OUTSIDE DOG IN THE FIGHT 

You may sing of your dog, your bottom dog, 

Or of any dog that you please, 
I go for the dog, the wise old dog, 

That knowingly takes his ease, 
And, wagging his tail outside the ring. 

Keeping always his bone in sight, 
Cares not a pin in his wise old head 

For either dog in the fight. 

Not his is the bone they are fighting for. 

And why shojild my dog sail in. 
With nothing to gain but a certain chance 

To lose his own precious skin ! 
There may be a few, perhaps, who fail 

To see it in quite this light. 
But when the fur flies I had rather be 

The outside dog in the fight. 



io8 Memories and Anecdotes 

I know there are dogs — most generous dogs 

Who think it is quite the thing 
To take the part of the bottom dog, 

And go yelping into the ring. 
I care not a pin what the world may say 

In regard to the wrong or right; 
My money goes as well as my song, 

For the dog that keeps out of the fight! 

Mr. Webb, like Charles Lamb and the late Mr. 
Travers, stammered just enough to give piquancy 
to his conversation. To facilitate enunciation 
he placed a " g " before the letters which it was hard 
for him to pronounce. We were talking of the 
many sad and sudden deaths from pneumonia, 
bronchitis, etc., during the recent spring season, 
and then of the insincerity of poets who sighed for 
death and longed for a summons to depart. He 
said in his deliciously slow and stumbling manner : 
"I don't want the ger-pneu-m-mon-ia. I'm in no 
ger-hurry to ger-go. " Mrs. Webb's drawing- 
rooms were filled with valuable pictures and 
bronzes, and her Thursday Evenings at home 
were a delight to many. 

How little we sometimes know of the real spirit 
and the inner life of some noble man or woman. 
Mrs. Hermann was a remarkable instance of this. 
I thought I was well acquainted with Mrs. Esther 
Hermann, who, in her home, 59 West fifty-sixth 



Mrs. Hermann 109 

Street New York, was always entertaining her many 
friends. Often three evenings a week were given 
to doing something worth while for someone, or 
giving opportunity for us to hear some famous 
man or woman speak, who was interested in some 
great project. And her refreshments, after the 
hour of listening was over, were of the most 
generous and delicious kind. Hers was a lavish 
hospitality. It was all so easily and quietly done, 
that no one realized that those delightful evenings 
were anything but play to her. She became inter- 
ested in me when I was almost a novice in the 
lecture field, gave me two benefits, invited those 
whom she thought would enjoy my talks, and 
might also be of service to me. There was never 
the slightest stiffness ; if one woman was there for 
the first time, and a stranger, Mrs. Hermann and 
her daughters saw that there were plenty of intro- 
ductions and an escort engaged to take the lady to 
the supper room. Mrs. Hermann in those early 
days, often took me to drive in the park — a great 
treat. We chatted merrily together, and I still 
fancied I knew her. But her own family did not 
know of her great benefactions ; her son only knew 
by looking over her check books, after her death, 
how much she had given away. Far from blazon- 
ing it abroad, she insisted on secrecy. She in- 



no Memories and Anecdotes 

vited Mr. Henry Fairfield Osborn to call, who was 
keenly interested in securing money to start a 
Natural History Museum, he bringing a friend 
with him. After they had owned that they found 
it impossible even to gain the first donation, she 
handed Mr. Osborn, after expressing her interest, 
a check for ten thousand dollars. At first he 
thought he would not open it in her presence, but 
later did so. He was amazed and said very grate- 
fully: "Madam, I will have this recognized at 
once by the Society." She said: "I want no 
recognition. If you insist, I shall take back the 
envelope." Her daughter describes her enthusi- 
asm one very stormy, cold Sunday. Stephen S. 
Wise, the famous rabbi, was advertised to preach 
in the morning at such a place. "Mother was 
there in a front seat early, eager to get every word 
of wisdom that fell from his lips." Mr. Wise 
spoke at the Free Synagogue Convention at three 
o'clock P.M. "Mother was there promptly again, 
in front, her dark eyes glowing with intense inter- 
est." At eight P.M. he spoke at another hall on 
the other side of the city, "Mother was there." 
At the close, Mr. Wise stepped down from the 
platform to shake hands with Mrs. Hermann, and 
said, "I am surprised at seeing you at these three 
meetings, and in such bad weather. " She replied, 



Mrs. Hermann iii 

"Why should you be surprised; you were at all 
three, weren't you?" 

She had a long life of perfect health and never 
paid the least attention to the worst of weather 
if she had a duty to perform. 

There was something of the fairy godmother in 
this large-hearted woman, whose modesty equalled 
her generosity. She dropped gifts by the way, 
always eager to help, and anxious to keep out of 
sight. Mrs. Hermann was one of those women 
who sow the seeds of kindness with a careless hand, 
and help to make waste places beautiful. She 
became deeply interested in education early in life, 
and her faith was evidenced by her work. She 
was one of the founders of Barnard College. Her 
checks became very familiar to the treasurers of 
many educational enterprises. She was one of 
the patrons of the American Association for the 
Advancement of Sciences, and many years ago 
gave one thousand dollars to aid the Association. 
Since then she has added ten thousand dollars as 
a nucleus toward the erection of a building to be 
called the Academy of Science. With the same 
generous spirit she contributed ten thousand dol- 
lars to the Young Men's Hebrew Association for 
educational purposes. It was for the purpose of 
giving teachers the opportunity of studying botany 



112 ]VIemories and Anecdotes 

from nature, that she gave ten thousand dollars 
to the Botanical Garden in the Bronx. 

Her knowledge of the great need for a technical 
school for Jewish boys preyed on her mind at 
night so that she could not sleep, and she felt it 
was wrong to be riding about the city when these 
boys could be helped. She sold her carriages and 
horses, walked for three years instead of riding, and 
sent a large check to start the school. It is pleas- 
ant to recall that the boys educated there have 
turned out wonderfully well, some of them very 
clever electricians. 

I could continue indefinitely naming the acts 
of generosity of this noble woman, but we have 
said enough to show why her many friends desired 
to express their appreciation of her sterling virtues, 
and their love for the gentle lady, whose kindness 
has given happiness to countless numbers. To 
this end, some of her friends planned to give her a 
a testimonial, and called together representatives 
from the hundred and twenty-five different clubs 
and organizations of which she was a member, to 
consider the project. This suggestion was received 
with such enthusiasm that a committee was ap- 
pointed who arranged a fitting tribute worthy of 
the occasion. 

The poem with which I close my tribute to my 



Mrs. Hermann 113 

dear friend, Mrs. Hermann, is especially fitting to 
her beautiful life. Her family, even after they 
were all married and in happy homes of their own, 
were expected by the mother every Sunday even- 
ing. These occasions were inexpressibly dear to her 
warm heart, devoted to her children and grand- 
children. But owing to her reticence she was even 
to them really unknown. 

I had given at first many more instances of her 
almost daily ministrations but later this seemed to 
be in direct opposition to her oft-expressed wish 
for no recognition of her gifts. "We are spirits 
clad in veils," but of Mrs. Hermann this was espe- 
cially true and I love her memory too well not to 
regard her wishes as sacred. 

GNOSIS 

Thought is deeper than all speech. 

Feeling deeper than all thought; 
Souls to souls can never teach 

What unto themselves was taught. 

We are spirits clad in veils; 

Man by man was never seen; 
All our deep communing fails 

To remove the shadowy screen. 

Heart to heart was never known; 

Mind with mind did never meet ; 
We are columns left alone 

Of a temple once complete. 

8 



114 Memories and Anecdotes 

Like the stars that gem the sky, 

Far apart, though seeming near, 
In our Hght we scattered He; 

All is thus but starlight here. 

What is social company, 

But the babbling summer stream? 

What our wise philosophy 
But the glancing of a dream? 

Only when the sun of love 

Melts the scattered stars of thought, 

Only when we live above 

What the dim-eyed world hath taught, 

Only when our souls are fed 

By the fount which gave them birth, 

And by inspiration led 

Which they never drew from earth. 

We, like parted drops of rain, 

Swelling till they meet and run, 
Shall be all absorbed again. 

Melting, flowing into one. 
Christopher Pearse Cranch (1813-1892). 

Cranch's own title for this poem was "Enosis," 
not "Gnosis" as now given; "Enosis" being a 
Greek word meaning "all in one," which is 
illustrated by the last verse. 

It was first published in the Dial in 1844. 
"Stanzas" appeared at the head, and at the end 
was his initial, "C." 



CHAPTER IV 

Three Years at Smith College— Appreciation of Its Founder— A 
Successful Lecture Tour — My Trip to Alaska. 

"There is nothing so certain as the unex- 
pected," and "if you fit yourself for the wall, you 
will be put in." 

I was in danger of being spoiled by kindness in 
New York and the surrounding towns, if not in 
danger of a breakdown from constant activity, 
literary and social, with club interests and week- 
end visits at homes of delightful friends on the 
Hudson, when I was surprised and honoured by a 
call from President L. Clark Seelye of Smith Col- 
lege, Northampton, Massachusetts, who invited 
me to take the position of teacher of EngHsh Liter- 
ature at that college. 

I accepted, and remained at Northampton for 
three years, from 1 880-1 883. It was a busy life. 
I went on Saturday afternoons to a class of married 
ladies at Mrs. Terhune's (Marion Harland) in 
Springfield, Massachusetts, where her husband was 

115 



ii6 Memories and Anecdotes 

a clergyman in one of the largest churches in that 
city. I also pubHshed several books, and at least 
two Calendars, while trying to make the students 
at Smith College enthusiastic workers in my 
department. 

Mrs. Terhune was a versatile and entertaining 
woman, a most practical housekeeper; and she 
could tell the very best ghost story I ever heard, 
for it is of a ghost who for many years was the 
especial property of her father's family. 

When I gave evening lectures at Mrs. Terhune's 
while at Smith College, I was accustomed to spend 
the night there. She always insisted upon rising 
early to see that the table was set properly for me, 
and she often would bring in something specially 
tempting of her own cooking. A picture I can 
never forget is that of Doctor Terhune who, before 
offering grace at meals, used to stretch out a hand 
to each of his daughters, and so more closely 
include them in his petition. 

I used no special text-book while at Smith Col- 
lege, and requested my class to question me ten 
minutes at the close of every recitation. Each 
girl brought a commonplace book to the recitation 
room to take notes as I talked. Some' of them 
showed great power of expression while writing 
on the themes provided. There was a monthly 



Smith College 117 

examination, often largely attended by friends out 
of town. I still keep up my interest in my pupils 
of that day. One of them told me that they 
thought at first I was currying popularity, I was 
so cordial and even affectionate, but they confessed 
they were mistaken. 

Under President Seelye's wise management, 
Smith College has taken a high position, and is 
constantly growing better. The tributes to his 
thirty-seven years in service when he resigned 
prove how thoroughly he was appreciated. I 
give a few extracts: 

We wish to record the fact that this has been, in a 
unique degree, your personal work. If you had given 
the original sum which called the College into being, 
and had left its administration to others, you would 
have been less truly the creator of the institution than 
you have been through your executive efficiency. 
Your plans have seldom been revised by the Board of 
Trustees, and your selection of teachers has brought 
together a faculty which is at least equal to the best 
of those engaged in the education of women. You 
have secured for the teachers a freedom of instruction 
which has inspired them to high attainment and fruit- 
ful work. You, with them, have given to the College 
a commanding position in the country, and have 
secured for it and for its graduates universal respect. 
The deep foundations for its success have been intel- 
lectual and spiritual, and its abiding work has been 
the building up of character by contact with character. 



ii8 Memories and Anecdotes 

Fortunate in her location, fortunate in her, large 
minded trustees, fortunate in the loyal devotedness of 
her faculty and supremely fortunate has our College 
been in the consecrated creative genius of her illustrious 
president. Bringing to his task a noble ideal, with 
rare sagacity as an administrator; with financial and 
economic skill rarely found in a scholar and idealist, 
but necessary to foster into fullest fruitfulness the 
slender pecuniary resources then at hand; with tact 
and suavity which made President Seelye's "no," 
if no were needed, more gracious than "yes" from 
others; with the force which grasps difficulties fear- 
lessly ; with dignified scholarship and a courtly manner, 
the master builder of our College, under whose hand 
the little one has become a thousand and the small one 
a strong republic, has achieved the realization of his 
high ideal and is crowned with honour and affection. 

He has made one ashamed of any but the highest 
motives, and has taught us that sympathy and love 
for mankind are the traits for which to strive. The 
ideals of womanly life which he instilled will ever be 
held high before us. 

There are many distinguished qualities which a 
college president must possess. He must be idealist, 
creator, executor, financier, and scholar. President 
Seelye — ^is all these — but he had another and a rarer 
gift which binds and links these qualities together, 
as the chain on which jewels are strung — President 
Seelye had immense capacity for work and patient 
attention for details. It is this unusual combination 
which has given us a great College, and has given to 
our president a unique position among educators. 



Smith Colleore 119 



'& 



I realize that I must at times have been rather 
a trying proposition to President Seelye for I was 
placed in an entirely new world, and having been 
almost wholly educated by my father, by Dart- 
mouth professors, and by students of the highest 
scholarship, I never knew the mental friction and 
the averaging up and down of those accustomed 
to large classes. I gained far more there than I 
gave, for I learned my Hmitations, or some of them, 
and to try to stick closely to my own work, to be 
less impulsive, and not offer opinions and sugges- 
tions, unasked, undesired, and in that early stage 
of the college, objectionable. Still, President 
Seelye writes to me: "I remember you as a very 
stimiilating teacher of English Literature, and I 
have often heard your pupils, here and afterwards, 
express great interest in your instruction." 

The only "illuminating" incident in my three 
years at Smith College was owing to my wish to 
honour the graduating reception of the Senior class. 
I pinned my new curtains carefully away, put 
some candles in the windows, leaving two young 
ladies of the second year to see that all was safe. 
The house was the oldest but one in the town; it 
harboured two aged paralytics whom it would be 
difficult, if not dangerous, to remove. Six stu- 
dents had their home there. As my fire-guards 



120 Memories and Anecdotes 

heard me returning with my sister and some gentle- 
men of the town, they left the room, the door 
slammed, a breeze blew the light from the candles 
to the curtains, and in an instant the curtains were 
ablaze. 

And^now the unbelievable sequel. The room 
seemed all on fire in five minutes. Next, the over- 
head beam was blazing. I can tell you that the 
fire was extinguished by those gentlemen, and no 
one ever knew we had been so near a conflagration 
until three years later when the kind lady of the 
house wrote to me: "Dear Friend, did you ever 
have a fire in your room? In making it over I 
found some wood badly scorched." I have the 
most reliable witnesses, or you would never have 
believed it. In the morning my hostess said to the 
girls assembled at breakfast: "Miss Sanborn is 
always rather noisy when she has guests, but I 
never did hear such a hullabaloo as she made last 
evening." 

It is certain that President Seelye deserves all the 
appreciation and affectionate regard he received. 
He has won his laurels and he needs the rest which 
only resignation could bring. The college is 
equally fortunate in securing as his successor, 
Marion LeRoy Burton, who in the coming years 
may lead the way through broader paths, to greater 



Sophia Smith 121 

heights, always keeping President Seelye's ideal 
of the truly womanly type, in a distinctively 
woman's college. 

As the Rev. Dr. John M. Greene writes me (the 
clergyman who suggested to Sophia Smith that 
she give her money to found a college for women, 
and who at eighty-five years has a perfectly un- 
clouded mind) : "I want to say that my ambition 
for Smith College is that it shall be a real women's 
college. Too many of our women's colleges are 
only men's colleges for women." 

I desire now to add my tribute to that noble 
woman, Sophia Smith of Hatfield, Massachusetts. 
On April 18, 1796, the town of Hatfield, in town 
meeting assembled, "voiced to set up two schools, 
for the schooling of girls four months in the year. " 
The people of that beautiful town seemed to have 
heard the voice of their coming prophetess, com- 
missioned to speak a word for woman's education, 
which the worid has shown itself ready to hear. 

In matters of heredity, Sophia Smith was for- 
tunate. Her paternal grandmother, Mary Morton, 
was an extraordinary woman. After the death of 
her husband, she became the legal guardian of her 
six sons, all young, cared for a large farm, and 
trained her boys to be useful and respected in the 
commimity. 



122 Memories and Anecdotes 

Sophia Smith was born in Hatfield, August 2"!, 
1796; just six months before Mary Lyon was born 
in Ashfield, Massachusetts, about seventeen miles 
distant. Sophia remembered her grandmother 
and said: "I looked up to my grandmother with 
great love and reverence. She, more than once, 
put her hands on my head and said, 'I want you 
should grow up, and be a good woman, and try 
to make the world better. ' " And her mother was 
equally religious, efficient, kind to the poor, sym- 
pathetic but not impulsive. Sophia lived in a 
country farmhouse near the Connecticut River for 
sixty-eight years. She was sadly hampered phys- 
ically. One of the historians of Hatfield writes me : 

Her infirmity of deafness was troublesome to some 
extent when she was young, making her shy and retir- 
ing. At forty she was absolutely incapable of hear- 
ing conversation. She also was lame in one foot and 
had a withered hand. In spite of this, I think she was 
an active and spirited girl, about like other girls. 
She was very fond of social intercourse, especially later 
in life when my father knew her, but this intercourse 
was confined to a small circle. Doctor Greene speaks 
of her timidity also. I know of no traditions about her 
girlhood. As an example of the thrift of the Smiths, 
or perhaps I should say, their exactness in all business 
dealings, my father says that Austin Smith never 
asked his sisters to sew a button or do repairs on his 
clothing without paying them a small sum for it, and 




SOPHIA SMITH 



Sophia Smith 123 

he always received six cents for doing chores or run- 
ning errands. No doubt this was a practice main- 
tained from early youth, for when Sophia Smith was 
born, in 1796, the family was in very moderate cir- 
cumstances. The whole community was poor for 
some time after the Revolution, and everyone saved 
pennies. 

As to her education, she used to sit on the door- 
steps of the schoolhouse and hear the privileged 
boys recite their lessons. She also had four or 
five months of instruction in the schoolhouse, and 
was a student in Hopkins Academy for a short time 
and, when fourteen years old, attended school at 
Hartford, Connecticut, for a term of twelve weeks. 

Then a long, uneventful, almost shut-in life, 
and in 1 861 her brother Austin left her an estate of 
about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

Hon. George W. Hubbard of Hatfield was her 
financial adviser. He advised her to found an 
academy for Hatfield, which she did; and after 
Doctor Greene had caused her to decide on a 
college for women, Mr. Hubbard insisted on having 
it placed at Northampton, Massachusetts, in- 
stead of Hatfield, Massachusetts. With her usual 
modesty, she objected to giving her full name 
to the college, as it would look as if she were 
seeking fame for herself. She gave thirty 
thousand dollars to endow a professorship in 



124 Memories and Anecdotes 

the Andover Theological Seminary at Andover, 
Massachusetts. 

She grew old gracefully, never soured by her 
infirmities, always denying herself to help others 
and make the world better for her living in it. 

Her name must stand side by side with the men 
who founded Vassar, Wellesley, and Barnard, and 
that of Mary Lyon to whom women owe the college 
of Mt. Holyoke. 

As Walt Whitman wrote: 

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, 
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, 
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of 
men. 

She was a martyr physically, and mentally a 
heroine. Let us never fail to honour the woman 
who founded Smith College. 

Extracts from a letter replying to my question: 
"Is there a full-length portrait of Sophia Smith, 
now to be seen anywhere in the principal building 
at Smith College, Northampton?" 

How I wish that some generous patron of Smith 
College might bestow upon it two thousand dollars 
for a full-length portrait of Sophia Smith to be placed 
in the large reading room, at the end of which is a 
full-length portrait of President Seelye. The presence 



Sophia Smith 125 

of such a commanding figure seen by hundreds of girls 
every day would be a subtle and lasting influence. 

I like to nibble at a stuffed date, but do not 
enjoy having my memory stuffed with dates, 
though I am proud rather than sensitive in regard 
to my age. 

Lady Morgan was unwilling her age should be 
known, and pleads : 

What has a woman to do with dates — cold, false, 
erroneous, chronological dates — new style, old style, 
precession of the equinoxes, ill-timed calculation of 
comets long since due at their station and never come? 
Her poetical idiosyncrasy, calculated by epochs, would 
make the most natural points of reference in woman's 
autobiography. Plutarch sets the example of drop- 
ping dates in favour of incidents; and an authority 
more appropriate, Madame de Genlis, who began her 
own memoires at eighty, swept through nearly an age 
of incident and revolution without any reference to 
vulgar eras signifying nothing (the times themselves 
out of joint), testifying to the pleasant incidents she 
recounts and the changes she witnessed. I mean to 
have none of them ! 

I hesitate to allude to my next experience after 
leaving Smith College, for it was so delightful that 
I am afraid I shall scarcely be believed, and am 
also afraid that my readers will consider me a 
"swell head" and my story only fit for a "Vanity 



126 Memories and Anecdotes 

Box." Yet I would not leave out one bit of the 
Western lecture trip. If it were possible to tell of 
the great kindness shown me at every step of the 
way without any mention of myself, I would 
gladly prefer to do that. 

After leaving Smith College, I was enjoying 
commencement festivities in my own home — 
when another surprising event! Mr. George W. 
Bartholomew, a graduate of Dartmouth, who was 
born and brought up in a neighbouring Vermont 
town, told me when he called that he had established 
a large and successful school for young ladies in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, taldng a few young ladies to live 
in his pleasant home. He urged me to go to his 
school for three months to teach literature, also 
giving lectures to ladies of the city in his large 
recitation hall. And he felt sure he could secure 
me many invitations to lecture in other cities. 

Remembering my former Western experience 
with measles and whooping-cough, I realized that 
mumps and chicken-pox were still likely to attack 
me, but the invitation was too tempting, and it 
was gladly accepted, and I went to Cincinnati in 
the fall of 1884. 

Mrs. Bartholomew I found a charming, woman 
and a most cordial friend. Every day of three 
months spent in Cincinnati was full of happiness. 



A Successful Lecture Tour 127 

Mrs. Broadwell, a decided leader in the best social 
matters, as well as in all public spirited enterprises, 
I had known years before in Hanover, N. H. Her 
brother. General William Haines Lytle, had been 
slain at Chickamauga during the Civil War, just in 
the full strength and glory of manhood. He wrote 
that striking poem, beginning: "I am dying, 
Egypt, dying." Here are two verses of his one 
poem: 

As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian! 

Glorious sorceress of the Nile, 
Light the path to Stygian horrors 

With the splendors of thy smile. 
Give the Csesar crowns and arches. 

Let his brow the laurel twine; 
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs, 

Triumphing in love like thine. 

I am dying, Egypt, dying; 

Hark ! the insulting foeman's cry. 
They are coming! quick, my falchion! 

Let me front them ere I die. 
Ah ! no more amid the battle 

Shall my heart exulting swell — 
Isis and Osiris guard thee! 

Cleopatra, Rome, farewell! 

He was engaged to Miss Sarah Doremus, a sister 
of Professor Doremus of New York. After the 
terrible shock of his sudden death she never mar- 



128 Memories and Anecdotes 

ried, but devoted her life to carrying out her 
sainted mother's missionary projects, once taking 
a trip alone around the world to visit the mission- 
ary stations started by her mother. 

As soon as I had arrived at Mr. Bartholomew's, 
Mrs. Broadwell gave me a dinner. Six unmarried 
ladies and seven well-known bachelors were the 
guests, as she wished to give me just what I needed, 
an endorsement among her own friends. The 
result was instant and potent. 

Everyone at that dinner did something after- 
wards to entertain me. I was often invited to the 
opera, always had a box (long-stemmed roses for 
all the ladies), also to dinner and lunches. If any- 
one in the city had anything in the way of a rare 
collection, from old engravings to rare old books, 
an evening was devoted to showing the collection 
to me with other friends. One lady. Miss Mary 
Louise McLaughlin, invited me to lunch with her 
alone. Her brother, a bachelor lawyer, had at 
that time the finest private library in the city. 
She was certainly the most versatile in her accom- 
plishments of anyone I have ever known. She 
had painted the best full-length portrait of Judge 
Longworth, father of the husband of Alice Roose- 
velt. She was a china painter to beat the Chinese, 
and author of four books on the subject. She was 



A Western Lecture Tour 129 

an artist in photography; had a portfolio of off- 
hand sketches of street gamins, newsboys, etc., full 
of life and expression. She brought the art of 
under glaze in china-firing to this country and had 
discovered a method of etching metal into fine 
woods for bedroom furniture. She was an expert 
at wood-carving, taking lessons from Ben Pitman. 
Was fond of housekeeping and made a success of 
it in every way. Anything else ? Yes, she showed 
me pieces of her exquisite embroidery and had 
made an artistic and wholly sane "crazy-quilt" 
so much in vogue at that time. Her own beautiful 
china was all painted and finished by herself. As 
I left her, I felt about two feet high, with a pin 
head. And yet she was free from the slightest 
touch of conceit. 

Miss Laura MacDonald (daughter of Alexander 
MacDonald, the business man who took great 
risks with Mr. John D. Rockefeller in borrowing 
money to invest largely in oil fields) was my pupil 
in the school, and through her I became acquainted 
with her lovely mother, who invited me to her 
home at Clifton, just out of Cincinnati, to lecture 
to a select audience of her special friends. 

My lectures at Mr. Bartholomew's school were 

very well attended. Lists of my subjects were sent 

about widely, and when the day came for my en- 
9 



130 Memories and Anecdotes 

thusiastic praise of Christopher North (John Wil- 
son), a sweet-faced old lady came up to the desk 
and placed before me a large bunch of veritable 
Scotch heather for which she had sent to Scotland. 

In Cleveland, where I gave a series of talks, 
President Cutler, of Adelbert University, rose at 
the close of the last lecture and, looking genially 
towards me, made this acknowledgment: "I am 
free to confess that I have often been charmed by 
a woman, and occasionally instructed, but never 
before have I been charmed and instructed by 
the same woman." 

Cleveland showed even then the spirit of the 
Cleveland of today, which is putting that city in 
the very first rank of the cities not only of the 
United States but of the world in civic improve- 
ment and municipal progress, morally and physi- 
cally. Each night of my lectures I was entertained 
at a different house while there, and as a trifle to 
show their being in advance of other cities, I 
noticed that the ladies wore wigs to suit their 
costumes. That only became the fashion here last 
winter, but I saw no ultra colours such as we saw 
last year, green and pink and blue, but only those 
that suited their style and their costume. 

At Chicago I was the guest of Mrs. H. O. Stone, 
who gave me a dinner and an afternoon reception, 



A Western Lecture Tour 131 

where I met many members of various clubs, and 
the youngest grandmothers I had ever seen. 
At a lunch given for me by Mrs. Locke, wife of 
Rev. Clinton B. Locke, I met Mrs. Potter Pal- 
mer, Mrs. Wayne MacVeagh, and Mrs. Williams, 
wife of General Williams, and formerly the wife 
of Stephen Douglas. Mrs. Locke was the best 
raconteur of any woman I have ever heard. Dart- 
mouth men drove me to all the show places of 
that wonderful city. Lectured in Rev. Dr. Little's 
church parlors. He was not only a New Hamp- 
shire man, but born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, 
where my grandfather lived, and where my mother 
lived until her marriage. 

It is pleasant to record that I was carried along 
on my lecture tour, sometimes by invitation of a 
Dartmouth man, again by college girls who had 
graduated at Smith College; then at Peoria, Illi- 
nois ; welcomed there by a dear friend from Brook- 
lyn, New York, wife of a business man of that cit3^ 
I knew of Peoria only as a great place for the manu- 
facture of whisky, and for its cast-iron stoves, 
but found it a city, magnificently situated on a 
series of bold bluffs. And when I reached my 
friend's house, a class of ladies, who had been 
easily chatting in German, wanted to stay and ask 
me a few questions. These showed deep thought. 



132 Memories and Anecdotes 

wide reading, and finely disciplined minds. Only- 
one reading there in the Congregational Church, 
where there was such a fearful lack of ventilation 
that I turned from my manuscript and quoted a 
bit from the "Apele for Are to the Sextant of the 
Old Brick Meetinouse by A. Gasper," which 
proved effectual. 

I give this impressive exhortation entire as it 
should be more generally known. 

A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT 
BY ARABELLA WILSON 

Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps 
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers. 

And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose, 

In which case it smells orful — wus than lampile; 

And wrings the Bel and toles it, and sweeps paths; 

And for these servaces gits $ioo per annum; 

Wich them that thinks deer let 'em try it ; 

Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and 

Kindlin fiers when the wether is as cold 

As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins, 

(I wouldn't be hierd to do it for no sum;) 

But o Sextant there are one kermodity 

Wuth more than gold which don't cost nuthin; 

Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man ! 

1 mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are ! 
O it is plenty out o dores, so plenty it doant no 
What on airth to do with itself, but flize about 
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men's hats ; 

In short its jest as free as Are out dores; 



A Apele for Are to the Sextant 133 

But Sextant ! in our church its scarce as piety, 

Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns, 

Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me. 

What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but Sextant! 

You shet 500 men women and children 

Speshily the latter, up in a tite place, 

Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet, 

Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth 

And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean ; 

But evry one of em brethes in and out and in 

Say 50 times a minnet, or i million and a half breths 

an hour; 
Now how long will a church full of are last at that 

rate? 
I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what's to be 

did? 
Why then they must brethe it all over agin, 
And then agin and so on, till each has took it down 
At least ten times and let it up agin, and what's 

more. 
The same individible doant have the privilege 
Of brethin his own are and no one else. 
Each one must take wotever comes to him. 
O Sextant ! doant you know our lungs is belluses 
To bio the fier of life and keep it from 
Going out: and how can bellusses bio without wind? 
And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens, 
Are is the same to us as milk to babies, 
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox, 
Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor, 
Or little pills unto an omepath. 
Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe. 
What signifize who preaches ef I can't brethe? 
What's Pol? What's Pollus to sinners who are ded? 



134 Memories and Anecdotes 

Ded for want of breth ! Why Sextant when we dj^e 

Its only coz we cant brethe no more — that's all. 

And now O Sextant ! let me beg of you 

To let a little are into our cherch 

(Fewer are is sertin proper for the pews) ; 

And dew it week days and on Sundys tew — 

It aint much trobble — only make a hoal, 

And then the are will come in of itself 

(It loves to come in where it can git warm). 

And O how it will rouze the people up 

And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps 

And yorns and fijits as effectool 

As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels 

Of. 

I went as far as Omaha, and then was asked if 
I were not going West. The reason for this charm- 
ing reception was that it was a novelty then to hear 
a young woman talk in a lively way on striking 
themes which had been most carefully prepared, 
and a light touch added, with frequent glints of hu- 
mour, Byron declared that easy writing was very 
hard reading. I reversed that method, always 
working hard over each lecture. For instance, I 
spent two months in preparing "Bachelor Authors," 
cramming and condensing, and passing quickly 
over dangerous ground. W^ith my vocal training I 
could easily be heard by an audience of five hundred. 

A friend was eager to go to Alaska by Seattle; 
then, after our return, visit Yellowstone Park and 



A Trip to Alaska 135 

San Francisco. She urged me so eloquently to 
accompany her, that I left my home in Met- 
calf, Massachusetts, taking great risks in many 
ways, but wonderful to relate, nothing disastrous 
occurred. 

We scurried by fastest trains across the country 
to Seattle, just in time to take the Steamer Topeka 
from Seattle on August 8, 1899, the last boat of 
the season, and the last chance tourists ever had 
to see the Muir Glacier in its marvellous glory, 
as it was broken badly before the next summer. 

My friend advised me kindly to ask no questions 
of the captain, as she knew well what a bore that 
was. I promised to be exceedingly careful. So, 
next morning, when that tall and handsome Cap- 
tain Thompson came around the deck, with a 
smiling "Good morning," and bowing right and 
left, I was deeply absorbed in a book; the next 
time I was looking at a view; another time I 
played I was fast asleep. He never spoke to me, 
only stopped an instant before me and walked on. 
At last, a bow-legged pilot came directly from 
the captain's office to my open window, bringing 
to Miss Sanborn a bowl of extra large and luscious 
strawberries from Douglas Island, quite famous 
on account of the size and sweetness of this berry. 
With this gift came a note running thus : 



136 Memories and Anecdotes 

Dear Miss Sanborn: 

I am a little puzzled by your frigid manner. Have 
you any personal prejudice against me? Walter Ray- 
mond wrote me before he sailed, to look you up, and 
do what I could for you, as you were quite a favourite 
on the Eastern coast, and any kindness shown to you 
would be considered a personal favour to him, and 
that he only wished he could take the trip with us. 

I was amazed and mortified. I had obeyed my 
directions too literally, and must and did explain 
and apologize. After that, such pleasant atten- 
tions from him! Invited to call at his office with 
my friends, to meet desirable passengers, some- 
thing nice provided for refreshment, and these 
gentlemen were always ready for cards or con- 
versation. But the great occasion was when I 
had no idea of such an honour, that the captain 
said : 

" We are soon to pass through the Wrangel 
Narrows, a dangerous place, and the steering 
through zigzag lines must be most careful. I am 
going to smuggle you on to the bridge to see me 
steer and hear me give my orders that will be re- 
peated below. But as it is against the rule to take 
a woman up there at such a time, promise me to 
keep perfectly silent. If you make one remark 
you lose your life." 

I agreed and kept my mouth shut without a 



A Trip to Alaska i37 

muzzle. That "memory" is as clear today as if 
it had happened yesterday. 

One day while reading in my fine stateroom, a 
lady came to the open door and asked me if I 
would go out with her on the deck that pleasant 
afternoon and meet some friends of hers. I 
thanked her, but refused as I was reading one of 
Hon. Justin McCarthy's books, and as I had the 
honour of meeting him and his most interesting 
wife in New York City at the home of Mrs. Henry 
M. Field, I was much engrossed in what he wrote. 
Again, another person came and entreated me to 
go to the deck; not suspecting any plot to test me, 
I went with her, and found a crowd gathered there, 
and a good-looking young man seemed to be 
haranguing them. He stopped as we came along 
and after being introduced went on with: "As I 
was saying, Miss Sanborn, I regard women as 
greatly our inferiors; in fact, essentially unemo- 
tional ,— really bovine. Do you really not agree to 
that ? " I almost choked with surprise and wrath, 
but managed to retort: "I am sorry to suppose 
your mother was a cow, but she must have been 
to raise a calf like you. " And I walked away to 
the tune of great applause. It seems someone had 
said that I was never at a loss when a repartee was 
needed, and it was proposed to give me an oppor- 



138 Memories and Anecdotes 

tunity. Next surprise : a call as we were nearing 
Seattle from a large and noticeable lady who in- 
troduced herself saying: 

" I am the president of a club which I started 
myself, and feel bound to help on. I have fol- 
lowed you about a good deal, and shall be much 
obliged if you will jot down for me to read to this 
club everything you have said since you came on 
board. I know they will enjoy it." I was sorry 
my memory failed me entirely on that occasion. 
Still it was a great compliment ! 

But the Muir Glacier! We had to keep three 
and a half miles away, lest the steamer be in- 
jured by the small icebergs which broke off 
the immense mass into the water with a thund- 
erous roar. A live glacier advances a certain 
distance each day and retreats a little. Those 
who visited the glacier brought back delicate 
little blue harebells they found growing in the 
clefts of ice. No description of my impressions ? 
Certainly not ! Too much of that has been done 
already. 

We saw curious sights along the way, such as the 
salmon leaping into a fenced-in pool to deposit 
their spawn; there they could be easily speared, 
dried, and pitched into wagons as we pitch hay in 
New England. I saw the Indians stretching the 



A Trip to Alaska 139 

salmon on boards put up in the sun, their color in 
the sun a brilliant pinkish red. 

I saw bears fishing at the edge of water, really 
catching fish in their clumsy paws. Other bears 
were picking strawberries for their cubs. As I 
watched them strolling away, I thought they might 
be looking for a stray cow to milk to add flavour 
to the berries. 

We stopped at Wrangel to look at the totem 
poles, many of which have since been stolen as the 
Indians did not wish to sell them; our usual me- 
thod of business with that abused race. Totem 
poles are genealogical records, and give the history 
of the family before whose door they stand. No 
one would quietly take the registered certificates 
of Revolutionary ancestors searched for with great 
care from the Colonial Dames or members of the 
New England Society, and coolly destroy them. 
I agree with Charles Lamb who said he didn't 
want to be like a potato, all that was best of him 
under ground. 

At Sitka the brilliant gardens and the large 
school for Indian girls were the objects of interest. 
It is a sad fact that the school which teaches these 
girls cleanly habits, the practical arts of sewing, and 
cooking simple but appetizing dishes, has made the 
girls unwilling to return to their dirty homes and 



140 Memories and Anecdotes 

the filthy habits of their parents. That would be 
impossible to them. So they are lured to visit the 
dance halls in Juneau, where they find admirers 
of a transient sort, but seldom secure an honest 
husband. 

We called at Skagway, and the lady who was 
known by us told us there was much stress there 
placed upon the most formal attention to rigid 
conventionalities, calls made and returned, cards 
left and received at just the right time, more than 
is expected in Boston. And yet that town was 
hardly started, and dirt and disorder and chaos 
reigned supreme. 

A company of unlucky miners came home in our 
steamer; no place for them to sleep but on deck 
near the doors of our stateroom, and they ate at 
one of the tables after three other hungry sets had 
been satisfied. A few slept on the tables. All the 
poultry had been killed and eaten. We found the 
Chinese cooks tried to make tough meat attractive 
by pink and yellow sauces. We were glad to leave 
the steamer to try the ups and downs of Seattle. 



CHAPTER V 

Frances E. Willard — Walt Whitman — Lady Henry Somerset- 
Mrs. Hannah Whitehall Smith— A Teetotaler for Ten Min- 
utes — Olive Thome Miller — Hearty Praise for Mrs. Lippin- 
cott (Grace Greenwood). 

I WAS looking over some letters from Frances E. 
Willard last week. What a powerful, blessed 
influence was hers! 

Such a rare combination of intense earnestness, 
persistence, and devotion to a "cause" with a 
gentle, forgiving, compassionate spirit, and all 
tempered by perfect self-control. 

Visiting in Germantown, Pennsylvania, at the 
hospitable home of Mrs. Hannah Whitehall Smith, 
the Quaker Bible reader and lay evangelist, and 
writer of cheerful counsel, I found several celebri- 
ties among her other guests. Miss Willard and 
Walt Whitman happened to be present. Whitman 
was rude and aggressively combative in his attack 
on the advocate of temperance, and that without 
the slightest provocation. He declared that all 
this total abstinence was absolute rot and of no 

141 



142 Memories and Anecdotes 

earthly use, and that he hated the sight of these 
women who went out of their way to be crusading 
temperance fanatics. 

After this outburst he left the room. Miss 
Willard never alluded to his fiery criticism, didn't 
seem to know she had been hit, but chatted on as 
if nothing unpleasant had occurred. 

In half an hour he returned ; and with a smiling 
face made a manly apology, and asked to be for- 
given for his too severe remarks. Miss Willard 
met him more than half-way, with generous cor- 
diality, and they became good friends. And when 
with the women of the circle again she said: "Now 
wasn't that just grand in that dear old man? I 
like him the more for his outspoken honesty and 
his unwiUingness to pain me." 

How they laboured with "Walt" to induce him 
to leave out certain of his poems from the next 
edition ! The wife went to her room to pray that 
he might yield, and the husband argued. But no 
use, it was all "art" every word, and not one line 
would he ever give up. The old poet was supposed 
to be poor and needy, and an enthusiastic daughter 
of Mrs. Smith had secured quite a sum at col- 
lege to provide bed linen and blankets for him 
in the simple cottage at Camden. Whitman was 
a great, breezy, florid-faced out-of-doors genius. 



Frances E. Willard 143 

but we all wished he had been a little less an 
naturel. 

To speak once more of Miss Willard, no one 
enjoyed a really laughable thing more than she 
did, but I never felt like being a foolish trifler in 
her presence. Her outlook was so far above mine 
that I always felt not rebuked, but ashamed of 
my superficial lightness of manner. 

Just one illustration of the unconscious influence 
of her noble soul and her convincing words : 

Many years ago, at an anniversary of Sorosis 
in New York, I had half promised the persuasive 
president (Jennie June) that I would say some- 
thing. The possibility of being called up for an 
after-dinner speech ! Something brief, terse, spark- 
ling, complimentary, satisfactory, and something 
to raise a laugh ! O, you know this agony ! I had 
nothing in particular to say; I wanted to be quiet 
and enjoy the treat. But between each course 
I tried hard, while apparently listening to my 
neighbour, to think up something "neat and 
appropriate." 

This coming martyrdom, which increases in hor- 
ror as you advance with deceptive gayety, from 
roast to game, and game to ices, is really one of 
the severest trials of club life. 

Miss Willard was one of the honoured guests of 



144 Memories and Anecdotes 

the day, and was called on first. When she arose 
and began to speak, I felt instantly that she had 
something to say; something that she felt was 
important we should hear, and how beautifully, 
how simply it was said! Not a thought of self, 
not one instant's hesitation for a thought or a word, 
yet it was evidently unwritten and not committed 
to memory. Every eye was drawn to her earnest 
face; every heart was touched. As she sat down, 
I rose and left the room rather rapidly; and when 
my name was called and my fizzling fireworks 
expected, I was walking up Fifth Avenue, thinking 
about her and her life-work . The whole experience 
was a revelation. I had never met such a woman. 
No affectation, nor pedantry, nor mannishness to 
mar the effect. It was in part the humiliating 
contrast between her soul-stirring words and my 
silly little society effort that drove me from the 
place, but all petty egotism vanished before the 
wish to be of real use to others with which her 
earnestness had inspired me. 

One lady told me that after hearing her she felt 
she could go out and be a praying band all by her- 
self. Indeed she was 

A noble woman, true and pure. 
Who in the little while she stayed, 
Wrought works that shall endure. 



Frances E. Willard i45 

She was asked who she would prefer to write a 
sketch of her and her work and she honoured me 
by giving me that great pleasure. The book ap- 
peared in 1883, entitled Our Famous Women. 

Once when Miss Willard was in Boston with 
Lady Henry Somerset and Anna Gordon, I was 
deUghted by a letter from Frances saying that 
Lady Henry wanted to know me and could I 
lunch with them soon at the Abbottsford. I ac- 
cepted joyously, but next morning's mail brought 
this depressing decision: "Dear Kate, we have 
decided that there will be more meat in going to 
you. When can we come? " I was hardly settled 
in my house of the Abandoned Farm. There was 
no furnace in the house, only two servants with me. 
And it would be impossible to entertain those 
friends properly in the dead of the winter, and I 
nearly ready to leave for a milder cHme. So I told 
them the stern facts and lost a rare treat. 

This is the end of Miss Willard's good-bye letter to 
me when returning to England with Lady Henry : 

Hoping to see you on my return, and hereby solicit- 
ing an exchange of photographs between you and 
Lady Henry and me, 

I am ever and as ever 

Yours, 
Frances Willard. 



146 Memories and Anecdotes 

While at Mrs. Smith's home in Germantown, 
both she and Miss Willard urged me to sign a 
Temperance Pledge that lay on the table in the 
library. I would have accepted almost anything 
either of those good friends presented for my 
attention. So after thinking seriously I signed. 
But after going to my room I felt sure that I 
could never keep that pledge. So I ran downstairs 
and told them to erase my name, which was done 
without one word of astonishment or reproof from 
either. 

I wish I knew how to describe Hannah Whitehall 
Smith as she was in her everyday life. Such simple 
nobility, such tenderness for the tempted, such a 
love for sinners, such a longing to show them the 
better way. She said to me: "If my friends must 
go to what is called Hell I want to go with them. " 
When a minister, who was her guest, was greatly 
roused at her lack of belief in eternal punishment 
and her infinite patience with those who lacked 
moral strength, he said: "There are surely some 
sins your daughters could commit which would 
make you drive them from your home. " "There 
are no sins my daughters could commit which 
would not make me hug them more closely in my 
arms and strive to bring them back." Wherewith 
he exclaimed bitterly: "Madam, you are a mere 



Olive Thorne Miller 147 

mucilaginous mess. " She made no reply, but her 
husband soon sent him word that a carriage would 
be at the door in one hour to convey him to the 
train for New York. 

"If you do not love the birds, you cannot under- 
stand them." 

I remember enjoying an article on the catbird 
several years ago in the Atlantic Monthly, and 
wanting to know more of the woman who had 
observed a pair of birds so closely, and could make 
so charming a story of their love-affairs and house- 
keeping experiences, and thinking that most 
persons knew next to nothing about birds, their 
habits, and homes. 

Mrs. Olive Thome Miller, who wrote that bird 
talk, is now a dear friend of mine, and while spend- 
ing a day with me lately was kind enough to answer 
all my questions as to how and where and when she 
began to study birds. She is not a young woman, 
is the proud grandmother of seven children; but 
her bright face crowned with handsome white hair, 
has that young, alert, happy look that comes with 
having a satisfying hobby that goes at a lively pace. 
She said : " I never thought of being anything but a 
housekeeping mother until I was about thirty-one 
and my husband lost all his property, and want, or 



148 Memories and Anecdotes 

a thousand wants, stared us in the face. Making 
the children's clothes and my own, and cooking 
as well, broke down my health, so I bethought me 
of writing, which I always had a longing to do. " 

"What did you begin with?" 

"Well, pretty poor stuff that no one was anxious 
to pay for; mostly in essay form expressing my own 
opinions on various important subjects. But it 
didn't go. I was complaining of my bad luck to 
a plain-spoken woman in charge of a circulating 
library, and she gave me grand advice. 'No one 
cares a snap for your opinions. You must tell 
something that folks want to know. ' " 

"Did you then take up birds?" 

"O no; I went into the library, read some of 
Harriet Martineau's talks on pottery, and told 
children how a teacup was made and got one dollar 
for that. But those pot-boilers were not inspiring, 
and about ten years later a second woman adviser 
turned my course into another channel." 

"How did that come about?" 

' ' I had a bird-loving friend from the West visit- 
ing me, and took her to Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 
to see our birds. She pointed out several, and so 
interested me in their lives that from that day I 
began to study them, especially the wood-thrush 
and catbird. After I had studied them for two 



Olive Thorne Miller 149 

years, I wrote what I had seen. From that time 
my course has seemed marked out for me, and my 
whole time has been given to this one theme. I 
think every woman over forty-five ought to take 
up a fad; they would be much happier and better 
off." 

"You told me once that three women had each 
in turn changed your career. Do give me the 
third." 

"Well, after my articles and books had met with 
favour (I have brought out fifteen books), invita- 
tions to lecture or talk about birds kept pour- 
ing in. I was talking this over with Marion 
Harland (Mrs. Terhune), declaring I could never 
appear in public, that I should be frightened out 
of my wits, and that I must decline. My voice 
would all go, and my heart jump into my mouth. 
She exclaimed, 'For a sensible woman, you are the 
biggest fool I ever met ! ' This set me thinking, and 
with many misgivings I accepted an invitation." 

"And did you nearly expire with stage fright?" 

"Never was scared one bit, my dear. All bird- 
lovers are the nicest kind of folks, either as an audi- 
ence or in their own homes. I have made most 
delightful acquaintances lecturing in fifteen differ- 
ent States ; am now booked for a tour in the West, 
lecturing every day and taking classes into the 



150 Memories and Anecdotes 

fields and woods for actual observation. Nesting- 
time is the best time to study the birds, to know 
them thoroughly. " 

"Do you speak about dead birds on hats ? " 

"Yes, when I am asked to do so. Did you ever 
hear that Celia Thaxter, finding herself in a car 
with women whose head-gear emulated a bird- 
museum, was moved to rise and appeal to them in 
so kindly a way that some pulled off the feathers 
then and there, and all promised to reform ? She 
loved birds so truly that she would not be angry 
when spring after spring they picked her seeds out 
of her 'Island Garden. ' " 

' ' Have you any special magnetic power over 
birds, so that they will come at your call or rest on 
your outstretched finger?" 

"Not in the least. I just like them, and love 
to get acquainted with them. Each bird whose 
acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to me 
as if he were totally unknown to the world. " 

We were sitting by a southern window that 
looks out on a wide-spreading and ancient elm, my 
glory and pride. Not one bird had I seen on it 
that cold, repellent middle of March. But Mrs. 
Miller looked up, and said: "Your fobins have 
come!" Sure enough I could now see a pair. 

"And there are the woodpeckers, but they have 



Olive Thorne Miller 151 

stayed all winter. No doubt you have the hooting 
owls. There's an oriole's nest, badly winter-worn ; 
but they will come back and build again. I see 
you feed your chickadees and sparrows, because 
they are so tame and fearless. I'd like to come 
later and make a list of the birds on your place. " 

I wonder how many she would find. Visiting 
at Deerfield, Massachusetts, I said one day to my 
host, the artist J. W. Champney: "You don't 
seem to have many birds round you. " 

"No?" he replied with a mocking rising inflec- 
tion. "Mrs. Miller, who was with us last week, 
found thirty-nine varieties in our front yard before 
breakfast!" Untrained eyes are really blind. 

Mrs. Miller is an excellent housekeeper, although 
a daughter now relieves her of that care. But, 
speaking at table of this and that dish and vege- 
table, she promised to send me some splendid re- 
ceipts for orange marmalade, baked canned corn, 
scalloped salmon, onion d la crhme (delicious), and 
did carefully copy and send them. 

She told me that in Denmark a woman over 
forty-five is considered gone. If she is poor, a 
retreat is ready for her without pay; if rich, she 
would better seek one of the homes provided for 
aged females who can pay well for a home. 

Another thing of interest was the fact that when 



152 Memories and Anecdotes 

Mrs. Miller eats no breakfast, her brain is in far 
better condition to write. She is a Swedenborgian, 
and I think that persons of that faith have usually 
a cheerful outlook on life. She was obliged to 
support herself after forty years of age. 

I would add to her advice about a hobby: don't 
wait till middle age; have one right away, now. 
Boys always do. I know of one young lady who 
makes a goodly sum out of home-made marmalade ; 
another who makes dresses for her family and 
special friends; another who sells three hundred 
dozen "brown" eggs to one of the best groceries 
in Boston, and supports herself. By the way, 
what can you do? 

Mrs. Lippincott had such a splendid, magnetic 
presence, such a handsome face with dark poetic 
eyes, and accomplished so many unusual things, 
that, knowing her as I did, I think I should be 
untrue to her if I did not try to show her as she 
was in her brilliant prime, and not merely as a 
punster or a raconteur, or as she appeared in her 
dramatic recitals, for these were but a small part 
of the many-sided genius. 

When my friend, Mrs. Botta, said one evening 
to her husband: "Grace writes me that she will be 
here tomorrow, to spend the Sabbath," and then 
said to me, ' ' Grace Greenwood, I mean ; have you 



Grace Lippincott i53 

ever met her?" my heart beat very quickly in 
pleasant anticipation of her coming. Grace 
Greenwood ! Why , I had known her and loved her, 
at least her writings, ever since I was ten years old. 
Those dear books, bound in red, with such pretty 
pictures — History of My Pets and Recollections of 
My Childhood, were the most precious volumes in 
my Httle library. Anyone who has had pets and 
lost them (and the one follows the other, for pets 
always come to some tragic end) will delight in 
these stories. 

And then the Little Pilgrim, which I used to like 
next best to the Youth's Companion; and in later 
years her spirited, graceful poetry ; her racy maga- 
zine stories; her Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in 
Europe; her sparkhng letters to the Tribune, full 
of reHable news from Washington, graphic descrip- 
tions of prominent men and women, capital anec- 
dotes and atrocious puns;— O how glad I should 
be to look in her face and to shake hands with the 
author who had given me so much pleasure! 

Well, she came, I heard the bell ring, just when 
she was expected, with a vigorous pull, and, as the 
door opened, heard her say, in a jolly, soothing way : 
"Don't get into a passion," to the man who was 
swearing at her big trunk. And then I ran away, 
not wishing to intrude, and waited impatiently for 



154 Memories and Anecdotes 

dinner and an introduction to my well-beloved 
heroine. 

Grace — Mrs. Lippincott — I found to be a tall, 
fine-looking lady, with a commanding figure and a 
face that did not disappoint me, as faces so often 
do which you have dreamed about. She had dark 
hair, brown rather than black, which was arranged 
in becoming puffs round her face; and such eyes! 
large, dark, magnetic, fuU of sympathy, of kind, 
cordial feelings and of quick appreciation of fun. 
She talked much and well. If I should repeat aU 
the good stories she told us, that happy Saturday 
night, as we lingered round the table, you would be 
convulsed with laughter, that is, if I could give 
them with her gestures, expressions, and vivid 
word-pictures. 

She told one story which well illustrated the 
almost cruel persistent inquiries of neighbours 
about someone who is long in dying. An unfor- 
tunate husband was bothered each morning by 
repeated calls from children, who were sent by 
busy mothers to find out "Just how Miss Blake was 
feeling this morning." At last this became offen- 
sive, and he said: "Well, she's just the same — she 
ain't no better and she ain't no worse — she keeps 
just about so — she's just about dead, you can say 
she's dead." 



Grace Lippincott 155 

One Sunday evening she described her talks with 
the men in the prisons and penitentiaries, to whom 
she had been lately lecturing, proving that these 
hardened sinners had much that was good in 
them, and many longings for a nobler life, in spite 
of all their sins. 

No, I was not disappointed in "G. G." She 
was just as natural, hearty, and off-hand as when 
some thirty years ago, she was a romping, harum- 
scarum, bright-eyed schoolgirl, Sara Clarke, of 
western New York, who was almost a gypsy in her 
love for the fields and forests. She was always 
ready for any out-door exercise or sport. This 
gave her glorious health, which up to that time 
she had not lost. 

Her nom de plume, which she says she has never 
been able to drop, was only one of the many 
alliterative names adopted at that time. Look 
over the magazines and Annuals of those years, 
and you will find many such, as "Mary May wood, " 
"Dora Dashwood," "Ella EUwood" "Fanny 
Forrester, " "Fanny Fern, " "Jennie June, " "Min- 
nie Myrtle," and so on through the alphabet, one 
almost expecting to find a "Ninny Noodle." 
Examining one of Mrs. Lippincott 's first scrap- 
books of "Extracts from Newspapers," etc., 
which she had labelled, "Vanity, all is Vanity," 



156 Memories and Anecdotes 

I find many poems in her honour, much enthusiasm 
over her writings, and much speculation as to who 
"Grace Greenwood" might really be. The public 
curiosity was piqued to find out this new author 
who added to forceful originality ' ' the fascination 
of splendid gayety and brilliant trifling." John 
Brougham, the actor and dramatist, thus expressed 
his interest in a pubHshed letter to Willis : 

The only person that I am disposed to think, write 
or talk about at present is your dazzling, bewitching 
correspondent, "Grace Greenwood." Who is she? 
that I may swear by her! Where is she? that I may 
fling myself at her feet ! There is a splendour and dash 
about her pen that carry my fastidious soul captive 
by a single charge. I shall advertise for her through- 
out the whole Western country in the terms in which 
they inquire for Almeyda in Dryden's Don Sehastiaii : 
"Have you seen aught of a woman who lacks two of 
the four elements, who has nothing in her nature but 
air and fire?" 

And here is one of the poetical tributes : 

If to the old Hellenes 

Thee of yore the gods had given 

Another Muse, another Grace 

Had crowned the Olympian heaven. 

Whittier at that time spoke most cordially of 
her "earnest individuality, her warm, honest, 



Grace Lippincott 157 

happy, hopeful, human heart; her strong loves 
and deep hates. 

E. P. Whipple, the Boston critic and essayist, 
when reviewing her poems, spoke of their "exceed- 
ing readableness " ; and George Ripley, then of 
the New York Tribune, said: 

One charm of her writings is the frankness with 
which she takes the reader into her personal confi- 
dence. She is never formal, never a martyr to arti- 
ficial restraint, never wrapped in a mantle of reserve; 
but, with an almost childlike simplicity, presents a 
transparent revelation of her inmost thoughts and 
feelings, with perfect freedom from affectation. 

She might have distinguished herself on the 
stage in either tragedy or comedy, but was dis- 
suaded from that career by family friends. I 
remember seeing her at several receptions, reciting 
the rough Pike County dialect verse of Bret Harte 
and John Hay in costume. Standing behind a 
draped table, with a big slouch hat on, and a red 
flannel shirt, loose at the neck, her disguise was 
most effective, while her deep tones held us all. 
Her memory was phenomenal, and she could re- 
peat today stories of good things learned years ago. 

Her recitation was wonderful; so natural, so 
full of soul and power. I have heard many women 
read, some most execrably, who fancied they were 



15? Memories and Anecdotes 

famous elocutionists; some were so tolerable that 
I could sit and endure it ; others remarkably good, 
but I was never before so moved as to forget where 
I was and merge the reader in the character she 
assumed. 

Grace Greenwood probably made more puns in 
print than any other woman, and her conversa- 
tion was full of them. It was Grace Greenwood 
who, at a tea-drinking at the New England Wo- 
man's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one more 
story, but excused herself in this way: "No, I can- 
not get more than one story high on a cup of tea. " 

Her conversation was delightful, and what a 
series of reminiscences she could have given; for 
she knew, and in many cases intimately, most of 
the leading authors, artists, politicians, philanthro- 
pists, agitators, and actors of her time in both 
her own land and abroad. In one of her letters 
she describes the various authors she saw while 
lounging in Ticknor's old bookstore in Boston. 

Here, many a time, we saw Longfellow, looking 
wonderfully like a ruddy, hearty, happy English 
gentleman, with his full lips and beaming blue eyes. 
Whittier, alert, slender and long; half eager, half shy 
in manner; both cordial and evasive; his deep-set 
eyes glowing with the tender flame of the most humane 
genius of our time. 



Grace Lippincott 159 

Emerson's manner was to her "a curious 
mingling of Athenian philosophy and Yankee 
cuteness. " 

Saxe was "the handsome, herculean punster," 
and so on with many others. 

She resided with Miss Cushman in Rome, and 
in London she saw many lions — Mazzini, Kossuth, 
Dickens and Talfourd, Kingsley, Lover, the How- 
ellses, Miss Mitford, Mrs. Muloch Craik, George 
Eliot, etc. 

She was the first Washington correspondent of 
her sex, commencing in 1850 in a series of letters to 
a Philadelphia weekly; was for some years con- 
nected with the National Era, making her first 
tour in Europe as its correspondent, and has 
written much for The Hearth and Home, The 
Independent, Christian Inquirer, Congregationalist, 
Youth's Companion; also contributing a good deal 
to English publications, as Household Words and 
All the Year Round. 

She was the special correspondent from Washing- 
ton of the New York Tribune, and later of the 
Times. Her letters were racy, full of wit, senti- 
ment, and discriminating criticism, plenty of fun 
and a little sarcasm, but not so audaciously per- 
sonal and aggressive as some letter-writers from 
the capital. They attracted attention and were 



i6o Memories and Anecdotes 

widely copied, large extracts being made for the 
London Times. 

She lectured continually to large audiences dur- 
ing the Civil War on war themes, and subjects in a 
lighter strain ; was the first woman widely received 
as a lecturer by the colleges and lyceums. With a 
commanding presence, handsome face, an agree- 
able, permeating voice, a natural offhand manner, 
and something to say, she was at once a decided 
favourite, and travelled great distances to meet her 
engagements. She often quoted that ungallant 
speech from the Duke^of Argyle: "Woman has no 
right on a platform — except to be hung; then it's 
unavoidable"; and by her eloquence and wit 
proved its falsity and narrowness. Without the 
least imitation of masculine oratory, her best re- 
membered lectures are, "The Heroic in Common 
Life," and "Characteristics of Yankee Humour." 
She always had the rare gift of telling a story 
capitally, with ease, brevity, and dramatic effect, 
certain of the point or climax. I cannot think of 
any other woman of this country who has caused so 
much hearty laughter by this enviable gift. She 
can compress a word-picture or character-sketch 
into a few lines, as when she said of" the early 
Yankee : ' ' No matter how large a man he was, he 
had a look of shrinking and collapse about him. It 



Grace Lippincott i6i 

looked as if the Lord had made him and then 
pinched him. " And a woman who has done such 
good work in poetry, juvenile literature, journal- 
ism, on the platform, and in books of travel and 
biography, will not soon be forgotten. There is 
a list of eighteen volumes from her pen. 

She never established a salon, but the wide- 
spread, influential daily paper and the lecture hall 
are the movable salon to the women of genius in 
this Republic. 

This is just a memory. After all, we are but 
"Movie Pictures, " seen for a moment, and others 
take our place. 



CHAPTER VI 

In and Near Boston — Edward Everett Hale — Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson — Julia Ward Howe — Mary A. Livermore — 
A Day at the Concord School — Harriet G. Hosmer — " Dora 
D'Istria, " our Illustrious Visitor. 

Edward Everett Hale was kind to me, as he 
was to all who came within his radius. He once 
called to warn me to avoid, like poison, a rascally 
imposterwhowas calling on many of the authors in 
and near Boston to get one thousand dollars from 
each to create a publishing company, so that 
authors could have their books published at a much 
cheaper rate than in the regular way. This per- 
son never called on me, as I then had no bank 
account. He did utterly impoverish many other 
credulous persons, both writers, and in private 
families. All was grist that came to his mill, and 
he ground them "exceeding small." 

I met Mr. Hale one early spring at Pinehurst, 

North Carolina, with his wife and daughter. He 

always had a sad face, as one who knew and grieved 

over the faults and frailties of humanity, but at 

i6a 



Thomas Wentworth Higginson 163 

this time he was recovering from a severe fall, and 
walked with a slow and feeble step. When he 
noticed me sitting on the broad piazza, he came, 
and taking a chair beside me, began to joke in his 
old way, telling comical happenings, and inquired 
if I knew where Noah kept his bees. His answer: 
"In the Ark-hives, of course." Once when I 
asked his opinion. of a pompous, loud-voiced minis- 
ter, he only said, "Self, self, self!" 

I wonder how many in his audiences or his con- 
gregation could understand more than half of what 
he was saying. I once went to an Authors' Read- 
ing in Boston where he recited a poem, doubtless 
very impressive, but although in a box just over 
the stage, I could not get one word. He placed 
his voice at the roof of his mouth, a fine sounding 
board, but the words went no farther than the 
inside of his lips. I believe his grand books influ- 
ence more persons for better lives than even his 
personal presence and Christ-like magnetism. 

Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson never failed 
me. Once only I ventured alone into the Authors* 
Club Saturday meeting, and none of my own 
friends happened to be there. Evidently I was not 
known. Mr. Higginson saw the situation at once, 
and coming quickly to me escorted me to a comfort- 
able seat. He ordered two cups of tea with wafers, 



164 Memories and Anecdotes 

and beckoned to some delightful men and women 
to whom he introduced me as his friend Miss San- 
bom, thus putting me at my ease. He was also 
ever patient about my monomania of trying to 
prove that women possess both wit and humour. He 
spoke of his first wife as the wittiest woman he had 
ever known, giving convincing proof. A few men 
were on my side, but they could be counted on one 
hand omitting the thumb. But I worked on this 
theme until I had more than sufficient material 
for a good-sized volume. If a masculine book 
reviewer ever alluded to the book, it was with a 
sneer. He generally left it without a word, as 
men still ignore the fact when a woman wins in an 
essay-writing competition against men in her class 
or gets the verdict for her powers in a mixed de- 
bate. At last Mr. Higginson wrote me most 
kindly to stop battering on that theme. "If any 
man is such a fool as to insist that women are 
destitute of wit or humour, then he is so big a 
fool that it is not worth while to waste your good 
brains on him. T. W. Higginson. " That reproof 
chilled my ardour. Now you can hardly find any 
one who denies that women possess both qualities, 
and it is generally acknowledged that not a few 
have the added gift of comedy. 

As most biographers of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe 



Julia Ward Howe 165 

dwell on her other gifts as philanthropist, poet, and 
worker for the equality of women with men, I call 
attention to her effervescent, brilliant wit. Juli^ 
Ward Howe was undeniably witty. Her concur- 
rence with a dilapidated bachelor, who retained 
little but his conceit, was excellent. He said: "It 
is time now for me to settle down as a married man, 
but I want so much ; I want youth, health, wealth, 
of course; beauty, grace — " "Yes," she inter- 
rupted sympathetically, "you poor man, you do 
want them all." 

Of a conceited young man airing his disbelief 
at length in a magazine article, she said: "Charles 
evidently thinks he has invented atheism." 
After dining with a certain family noted for their 
chilling manners and lofty exclusiveness, she 
hurried to the house of a jolly friend, and, seating 
herself before the glowing fire, sought to regain 
a natural warmth, explaining: "I have spent three 
hours with the Mer de Glace, the Tete-Noire, and 
the Jungfrau, and am nearly frozen. " 

Pathos and humour as twins are exemplified 
by her tearful horror over the panorama of Gettys- 
burg, and then by her saying, when urged by Mrs. 
Livermore to dine with her: "O no! my dear, it's 
quarter past two, and Mr. Howe will be wild if he 
does not get — not his burg — but his dinner. " 



i66 Memories and Anecdotes 

Mrs. Howe's wit never failed her. I once told 
her I was annoyed by seeing in big headlines in 
the morning's paper, "Kate Sanborn moralizes," 
giving my feeble sentiments on some subject 
which must have been reported by a man whom I 
met for the first time the evening before at a 
reception, though I was ignorant of the fact that 
I was being interviewed. She comforted me by 
saying: "But after all, how much better that was 
than if he had announced, ' Kate Sanborn demoral- 
izes. ' " Or when Charles Sumner refusing to meet 
some friends of hers at dinner explained languidly : 
* ' Really, Julia, I have lost all my interest in individ- 
uals. " She retorted, "Why, Charles, God hasn't 
got as far as that yet!" Once walking in the 
streets of Boston with a friend she looked up and 
read on a public building, "Charitable Eye and 
Ear Infirmary. ' ' She said : " I did not know there 
were any charitable eyes and ears in Boston." 
She showed indomitable courage to the last. A 
lady in Boston, who lived opposite Mrs. Howe's 
home on Beacon Street, was sitting at a front win- 
dow one cold morning in winter, when ice made the 
steps dangerous. A carriage was driven up to 
Mrs. Howe's door to take her to the, station to 
attend a federation at Louisville. She came out 
alone, slipped on the second step, and rolled to the 



Mary A. Livermore 167 

pavement. She was past eighty, but picked her- 
self up with the quickness of a girl, looked at her 
windows to see if anyone noticed it, then entered 
the carriage and drove away. 

Was ever a child as unselfish as Mary Rice, after- 
wards Mary Livermore ? Sliding on ice was for her 
a climax of fun. Returning to the house after 
revelling in this exercise, she exclaimed : ' ' Splendid, 
splendid sliding. " Her father responded: "Yes, 
Mary, it's great fun, but wretched for shoes. " 

Those words kept ringing in her ears, and soon 
she thought how her father and mother had to 
practise close economy, and she decided: "I ought 
not to wear out my shoes by sliding, when shoes 
cost so much," and she did not slide any more. 
There was no more fun in it for her. 

She would get out of bed, when not more than 
ten years old, and beseech her parents to rise and 
pray for the children. ' ' It's no matter about me, " 
she once said to them, "if they can be saved, I can 
bear anything." 

She was not more than twelve years old, when 
she determined to aid her parents by doing work of 
some kind ; so it was settled that she should become 
a dressmaker. She went at once into a shop to 
learn the trade, remained for three months, and 
after that was hired at thirty-seven cents a day to 



i68 Memories and Anecdotes 

work there three months more. She also applied 
for work at a clothing store, and received a dozen 
red flannel shirts to make up at six and a quarter 
cents a piece. When her mother found this out, 
she burst into tears, and the womanly child was not 
allowed to take any more work home. We all 
know Mrs. Livermore's war record and her power 
and eloquence as an orator. 

I would not say she was a spiritualist, but she 
felt sure that she often had advice or warning on 
questions from some source, and always listened, 
and was saved from accidents and danger. And 
she said that what was revealed to her as she rested 
on her couch, between twilight and dusk, would not 
be believed, it was so wonderful. 

Mrs. Livermore had a terrible grief to bear, — 
the lifelong illness of her daughter from a chronic 
and incurable disease. She told me, when I was 
at her house, that she kept on lecturing, and 
accepting invitations, to divert her mind some- 
what. She felt at times that she could not leave 
her unfortunate child behind, when she should be 
called from earth, but she was enabled to drive 
that thought away. From a child, always helping 
others, self-sacrificing, heroic, endowed with mar- 
vellous energy and sympathy, hers was a most ex- 
ceptional life; now "Victor Palms" are her right. 



At the Concord School 169 

I spent one day at the famous Concord School 
of Philosophy during its first season. Of course 
I understood nothing that was going on. 

Emerson, then a mere wreck of his former self, 
was present, cared for by his wife or his daughter 
Ellen. Alcott made some most remarkable state- 
ments, as: "We each can decide when we will 
ascend." Then he would look around as if to 
question all, and add : " Is it not so ? Is it not so ? " 
I remember another of his mystic utterances: 
"When the mind is izzing, it is thinking things. 
Is it not so.'' Is it not so?" Also, "When we 
get angry or lose our temper, then fierce four-footed 
beasts come out of our mouths, do they not, do 
they not?" 

After Mr. Harris, the great educational light, 
had closed his remarks, and had asked for questions, 
one lady timidly arose and inquired: "Can an atom 
be said to be outside or inside of potentiality? " 

He calmly replied that "it could be said to be 
either inside or outside potentiality, as we might 
say of potatoes in a hat; they are either inside or 
outside the hat." That seemed to satisfy her 
perfectly. 

Mr. Frank B. Sanborn read his lecture on Amer- 
ican Literature, and I ventured to ask: "How 
would you define literature?" 



170 Memories and Anecdotes 

He said: "Anything written that gives perma- 
nent pleasure. " And then as he was a relative, I 
inquired, but probably was rather pert: "Would a 
bank check, if it were large enough, be literature?" 
which was generally considered as painfully trifling. 

Jones of Jacksonville was on the program, and 
talked and talked, but as I could not catch one 
idea, I cannot report. 

It was awfully hot on that hill with the sun 
shining down through the pine roof, so I thought 
one day enough. 

As I walked down the hill, I heard a man who 
seemed to have a lot of hasty pudding in his mouth, 
say in answer to a question from the lady with 
him: "Why, if you can't understand that, you can 
have no idea of the first principles (this with an 
emphatic gesture) of the Hegelian philosophy." 

Alcott struck me as a happy dreamer. He said 
to me joyously : " I'm going West in Lou's chariot, ' ' 
and of course with funds provided by his daughter. 

An article written by her, entitled "Transcen- 
dental Wild Oats," made a great impression on 
my mind. 

It appeared in a long-ago Independent and I 
tried in vain to find it last winter. 'Houghton 
and MifQin have recently published Bronson 
Alcott's "Fruitlands," compiled by Clara Endicott 



Harriet G. Hosmer 171 

Sears, with "Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa 
M. Alcott, so it is brought to the notice of those 
who will appreciate it. 

I called once on Miss Hosmer, who then was 
living with relatives in Watertown, Massachusetts, 
her old home ; the house where she was born and 
where she did her first modelling. Recently read- 
ing in Miss Whiting's record of Kate Field's life, 
of Miss Hosmer as a universal favourite in Rome, 
a dearly loved friend of the Brownings, and asso- 
ciated with the Hterary and artistic coterie there, 
a living part of that memorable group, most of 
whom are gone, I longed to look in her eyes, to 
shake her hand, to listen to her conversation. 
Everyone knows of her achievements as a sculptor. 

After waiting a few minutes, into the room 
tripped a merry-faced, bright-eyed little lady, all 
animation and cordiaHty as she said: "It is your 
fault that I am a little slovv in coming down, for I 
was engrossed in one of your own books, too much 
interested to remember to dress. " 

The question asked soon brought a flow of de- 
lightful recollection of Charlotte Cushman, Frances 
Power Cobbe, Grace Greenwood, Kate Field, and 
the Brownings. "Yes," she said, "I dined with 
them all one winter; they were lovely friends." 
She asked if we would like to see some autograph 



172 Memories and Anecdotes 

letters of theirs. One which seemed specially 
characteristic of Robert Browning was written on 
the thinnest of paper in the finest hand, difficult 
to decipher. And on the flap of the envelope was 
a long message from his wife. Each letter was 
addressed to "My dearest Hattie," and ended, 
"Yours most affectionately." There was one 
most comical impromptu sent to her by Browning, 
from some country house where there was a house 
party. They were greatly grieved at her failure 
to appear, and each name was twisted into a rhyme 
at the end of a line. Sir Roderick Murchison, for 
instance, was run in thus : 

As welcome as to cow is fodder-rick 
Would be your presence to Sir Roderick. 

A poor pun started another vein . ' ' You must hear 
some of Miss Cobbe's puns," said Miss Hosmer, 
and they were so daringly, glaring bad, as to be 
very good. When lame from a sprain, she was 
announced by a pompous butler at a reception as 
"Miss Cobble." "No, Miss Hobble," was her 
instant correction. She weighed nearly three 
hundred pounds and, one day, complaining of a 
pain in the small of her back her brother Exclaimed : 
"O Frances, where is the small of your back?" 
Miss Hosmer regarded Grace Greenwood (Mrs. 



Dora D'Istria i73 

Lippincott) as one of the best raconteurs and wit- 
tiest women she had known. She was with her at 
some museum where an immense antique drinking 
cup was exhibited, large enough for a sitz bath. 
"A goblet for a Titan," said Harriet. "And the 
one who drained it would be a tight un," said 
Grace. 

She thought the best thing ever said about sea- 
sickness was from Kate Field, who, after a tem- 
pestuous trip, said: "Lemonade is the only satis- 
factory drink on a sea voyage; it tastes as well 
coming up as going down. " 

The last years of this brilliant and beloved 
woman were devoted to futile attempts to solve the 
problem of Perpetual Motion. I wish she had 
given us her memories instead. 

Helen Ghika was born at Bucharest, Wallachia, the 
22nd of January, 1829. The Ghika family is of an 
ancient and noble race. It originated in Albania, 
and two centuries ago the head of it went to Wallachia, 
where it had been a powerful and ruling family. In 
1849, at the age of twenty, the Princess was married 
to a Russian, Prince Koltzoff Massalsky, a descendant 
of the old Vikings of Moldavia; her marriage has not 
been a congenial one. 

A sketch of the distinguished woman, Helen Ghika, 
the Princess Massalsky, who, under the nom de plume 



174 Memories and Anecdotes 

of Dora D'Istria, has made for herself a reputation 
and position in the world of letters among the great 
women of our century, will at least have something 
of the charm of novelty for most American readers. 
In Europe this lady was everywhere known, beloved 
by many personal friends, and admired by all who had 
read her works. Her thought was profound and 
liberal, her views were broad and humane. As an 
author, philanthropist, traveller, artist, and one of the 
strongest advocates of freedom and liberty for the 
oppressed of both sexes, and of her suffering sisters 
especially, she was an honour to the time and to 
womanhood. The women of the old world found in 
her a powerful, sympathizing, yet rational champion; 
just in her arguments in their behalf, able in her 
statements of their needs, and thoroughly interested 
in their elevation and improvement. 

Her works embrace a vast range of thought, and 
show profound study and industry. The subjects 
are many. They number about twenty volumes on 
nationality, on social questions more than eight, on 
politics eighteen or twenty. Her travels fill fifteen 
books, and, beside all this, she wrote three romances, 
numerous letters and articles for the daily papers, 
and addresses to be read before various learned 
societies, of which she was an honoured member. 
M. Deschanel, the critic of the Journal des Debats, 
has said of her that "each one of her works would 
suffice for the reputation of a man." As an artist, 
her paintings have been much admired. One of her 
books of travel, A Summer on the Banks of Hhe Danube, 
has a drawing by its author, a view of Borcia in 
Roumania. From a notable exhibition at St. Peters- 
burg she received a silver medal for two pictures 



Dora D'Istria 175 

called "The Pine" and "The Palm, " suggested to her 
by Heine's beautiful little poem: 

"A pine-tree sleeps alone 

On northern mountain-side; 
Eternal stainless snows 

Stretch round it far and wide. 

" The pine dreams of a palm 
As lonely, sad, and still. 
In glowing eastern clime 
On burning, rocky hill." 

This princess was the idol of her native people, who 
called her, with the warm enthusiasm of their race, 
"The Star of Albania." The learned and cultivated 
also did her homage. Named by Fredcrika Bremer 
and the Athenians, "The New Corinne, " she was 
invested by the Greeks with the citizenship of Greece 
for her efforts to assist the people of Candia to throw 
off the oppressor's yoke, this being the first time this 
honour had ever been granted to a woman. 

The catalogue of her writings fills several pages, the 
list of titles given her by learned societies nearly as 
many more and, while born a princess of an ancient 
race and by marriage one also, she counted these 
titles of rank as nothing compared with her working 
name, and was more widely known as Dora D'Istria 
than as the Princess Koltzofi Massalsky. 

There is a romantic fascination about this woman's 
life as brilliant as fiction, but more strange and re- 
markable in that it is all sober truth — nay, to her 
much of it was even sad reality. Her career was a 
glorious one, but lonely as the position of her pictured 



176 Memories and Anecdotes 

palm-tree, and oftentimes only upheld by her own 
consciousness of the right; she has felt the trials of 
minds isolated by greatness. Singularly gifted by 
nature with both mental and physical, as well as social 
superiority, the Princess united in an unusual degree 
masculine strength of character, grasp of thought, 
philosophical calmness, love of study and research, 
joined to an ardent and impassioned love of the grand, 
the true, and the beautiful. She had the grace and 
tenderness of the most sensitive of women, added to 
mental endowments rare in a man. Her beauty, 
which had been remarkable, was the result of perfect 
health, careful training, and an active nature. Her 
physical training made her a fearless swimmer, a bold 
rider, and an excellent walker — all of which greatly 
added to her active habits and powers of observation 
in travelling, for she travelled much. Only a person 
of uncommon bodily vigour can so enjoy nature in her 
wildest moods and grandest aspects. 

This quotation is from a long article which Mrs. 
Grace L. Oliver, of Boston, published in an early 
number of Scrihner's Magazine. I never had 
known of the existence of this learned, accom- 
plished woman, but after reading this article I 
ventured to ask her to send me the material for a 
lecture and she responded most generously, send- 
ing books, many sketches of her career, full lists 
of the subjects which had most interested her, 
poems addressed to her as if she were a goddess, 
and the pictures she added proved her to have 



Dora D'Istria 177 

been certainly very beautiful. "She looked like 
Venus and spoke like Minerva. " 

My audience was greatly interested. She was as 
new to them as to me and all she had donated was 
handed round to an eager crowd. In about six 
months I saw in the papers that Dora D'lstria was 
taking a long trip to America to meet Mrs. Oliver, 
Edison, Longfellow, and myself! 

I called on her later at a seashore hotel near 
Boston. She had just finished her lunch, and said 
she had been enjoying for the first time boiled com 
on the cob. She was sitting on the piazza, rather 
shabbily dressed, her skirt decidedly travel- 
stained. Traces of the butter used on the corn 
were visible about her mouth and she was smoking 
a large and very strong cigar, a sight not so com- 
mon at that time in this country. A rocking chair 
was to her a delightful novelty and she had already 
bought six large rocking chairs of wickerwork. 
She was sitting in one and busily swaying back and 
forward and said: "Here I do repose myself and 
I take these chairs home with me and when de 
gentlemen and de ladies do come to see me in Flor- 
ence, I do show them how to repose themselves. " 

Suddenly she looked at me and began to laugh 
immoderately. "Oh," she explained, seeing my 
puzzled expression, "I deed think of you as so 



178 Memories and Anecdotes 

deeferent, I deed think you were very tall and 
theen, with leetle, wiggly curls on each side of 
your face." 

She evidently had in mind the typical old maid 
with gimlet ringlets! So we sat and rocked and 
laughed, for I was equally surprised to meet a 
person so "different" from my romantic ideal. 
Like the two Irishmen, who chancing to meet were 
each mistaken in the identity of the other. As one 
of them put it, "We looked at each other and, faith, 
it turned out to be nayther of us. " 

The Princess Massalsky sent to Mrs. Oliver 
and myself valuable tokens of her regard as sou- 
venirs. 



CHAPTER VII 

Elected to be the First President of New Hampshire Daughters 
in Massachusetts and New Hampshire — Now Honorary 
President — Kind Words which I Highly Value — Three, but 
not "of a Kind" — A Strictly Family Affair — Two Favourite 
Poems — Breezy Meadows. 

On May 15, 1894, I was elected to be the first 
president of the New Hampshire Daughters in 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and held the 
position for three years. Was then made Hon- 
orary President. 

Some unsolicited approval : 

Hers was a notable administration, and brought to 
the organization a prestige which remains. Rules 
might fail, but the brilliant president never. She 
governed a merry company, many of them famous, 
but she was chief. They loved her, and that affection 
and pride still exist. 

A daughter of the "Granite State," who can cer- 
tainly take front rank among business women, is 
Kate Sanborn, the beloved president of New Hamp- 
shire's Daughters. 

179 



i8o Memories and Anecdotes 

Another thing that has occupied Miss Sanborn's 
time this summer aside from farming and writing is 
the program for the coming winter's work for the 
Daughters of New Hampshire. It is all planned, and 
if all the women's clubs carry such a program as the 
one which Miss Sanborn has planned, and that means 
that it will be carried out, the winter's history of 
women's clubs will be one of unprecedented prosperity. 

If New Hampshire's daughters now living out of 
their own State do not keep track of each other, and 
become acquainted into the bargain, it will not be the 
fault of their president, who has carried on corre- 
spondence with almost every one of them, and who 
has planned a winter's work that will enable them 
to learn something about their own State, as well as 
to meet for the promoting of acquaintance. 

OUR FIRST MEETING 

This meeting was presided over by our much loved 
First-President, Kate Sanborn, and it was the most 
informal, spontaneous, and altogether enjoyable organ- 
ization meeting that could be imagined, and the happy 
spirit came that has guided our way and helped us 
over the rough places leading us always to the light. 

Our first resolve was to enjoy to the utmost the 
pleasure of being together, and with it to do everything 
possible to help ournative State. To these two objects 
we have been steadfastly true in all the years; and 
how we have planned, and what we have done has 
been recorded to our credit, so that we may now say 
in looking back, "We have kept the faith and been 
true." 



Kind Words i8i 

At this time there are so many memories, all equally 
precious and worthy of mention here, but we tnust be 
brief and only a few can be recalled. 

In our early years our Kate Sanborn led us through 
so many pleasant paths, and with her "twin Presi- 
dent," Julia K. Dyer, brought the real New Hamp- 
shire atmosphere into it all. 

That was a grand Dartmouth Day, when the good 
man, Eleazar Wheelock, came down from his accus- 
tomed wall space to grace our program and the Dart- 
mouth Sons brought their flag and delighted us with 
their college songs. 

Since then have come to us governors, senators, 
judges, mayors, and many celebrities, all glad to bring 
some story with the breath of the hills to New Hamp- 
shire's Daughters. Kate Sanborn first called for 
our county tributes, to renew old acquaintances and 
promote rivalry among the members. We adorned 
ourselves with the gold buttercup badges, and adopted 
the grey and garnet as our colors. 

NEW Hampshire's daughters 

Members of the Society Hold an Experience Meeting. 

The first meeting of the season of New Hampshire's 
Daughters was held at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, 
Saturday afternoon, and was a most successful gather- 
ing, both in point of attendance and of general interest. 
The business of the association was transacted under 
the direction of the president. Miss Kate Sanborn, 
whose free construction of parliamentary law and 
independent adherence to common sense as against 
narrow conventionality, results in satisfactory pro- 



1 82 Memories and Anecdotes 

gress and rapid action. The 150 or more ladies pres- 
ent were more convinced than ever that Miss Sanborn 
is the right woman in the right place, although she 
herself indignantly repudiates the notion that she is 
fitted to the position. 

The Daughters declare that the rapid growth of 
the organization is due to Miss Sanborn more than to 
any other influence. Her ability, brightness, wit, 
happy way of managing, and her strong personality 
generally are undoubtedly at present the mainstays 
of the Daughters' organization. She is ably assisted 
by an enthusiastic corps of officers. 

My dear Kate Sanborn: 

Your calendar about old age is simply au fait. 
After reading it, I want to hurry up and grow old as 
fast as I can. It is the best collection of sane thoughts 
upon old age that I know in any language. Life 
coming from the Source of Life must be glorious 
throughout. Thelastof life should be its best. Octo- 
ber is the king of all the year. A man should be more 
wonderful at eighty than at twenty; a woman should 
make her seventieth birthday more fascinating than 
her seventeenth. Merit never deserts the soul. God 
is with His children always. 

Yours for a long life and happiness, 

Peter MacQueen. 

Dear Kate Sanborn: 

The "Indian Summer Calendar" is the best thing 
you have done yet. I have read it straight through 
twice, and now it lies on my desk, and I read daily 




PETER MACQUEEN 



Kind Words 183 

selections from it, as some of the good people read 
from their "Golden Treasury of Texts." 

Mary A. Livermore. 

Dear Miss Sanborn : 

It gives me pleasure to offer my testimonial to your 
unique, original, and very picturesque lectures. The 
one to which I recently listened, in the New England 
Conservatory of Music, was certainly the most en- 
tertaining of any humorous lecture to which I have 
ever listened, and it left the audience talking, with such 
bright, happj'- faces, I can see it now in my mind. And 
they continued to repeat the happy things you said; 
at least my own friends did. It was not a "plea for 
cheerfulness," it was cheerfulness. I hope you may 
give it, and make the world laugh, a thousand times. 
"He who makes what is useful agreeable," said old 
Horace of literature, "wins every vote." You have 
the wit of making the usefiil agreeable, and the spirit 
and genius of it. 

Sincerely, 
Hezekiah Butterworth. 

I published a little volume, A Truthful Woman 
in Southern California, which had a large sale for 
many years. Women tourists bought it to "en- 
large" with their photographs. Stedman wrote 
me, after I had sent him my book: 

My dear Kate Sanborn: 

I think it especially charming that you should 
so remember me and send me a gift-copy of Truthful 
Kate's breezy and fascinating report of Southern 
California. For I had been so taken with your 



i84 Memories and Anecdotes 

adoption of that Abandoned Farm that I had 
made a note of your second book. Your chap- 
ters give me as vivid an idea of Southern California 
as I obtained from Miss Hazard's watercolors, and 
that is saying a good deal. We all like you, and indeed 
who does not ? And your books, so fresh and sparkling, 
make us like you even more. Believe that I am 
gratified by your unexpected gift, and by the note 
that convoyed it. 

Edmund C. Stedman. 

New York Public Library, 

Office of Circulation Department, 
209 West 23rd Street, 
February 19, 1907. 
Miss Kate Sanborn, 

Metcalf, Mass. 
Dear Miss Sanborn: 

You may be interested to know that your book on 
old wall-papers is included in a list of books specially 
recommended for libraries in Great Britain, compiled 
by the Library Association of the United Kingdom, 
recently published in London. As there seems to be 
a rather small proportion of American works included 
in the list, I think that this may be worthy of note. 
With kindest regards, I remain. 

Very truly yours, 

Arthur E. Bostwick. 
Chief of the Circulation Department. 

My dear Miss Kate Sanborn : 

How kind and generous you are to my books, and 
therefore, to me! How thoroughly you understand 
them and know why I wrote them ! 



Kind Words 185 

When a book of mine is sent out into the cold world 
of indifferent reviewers, I read their platitudinous 
words, trying to be grateful; but waiting, waiting, 
knowing that ere long I shall get a little clipping from 
the Somerville Journal, written by Kate Sanborn; 
and then I shall know what the book is. If it's good, 
she'll say so, and if it isn't, I think she would say so; 
but that alternative never has come to me. But I 
would far rather have her true words of dispraise 
than all machine-made twaddle of nearly all the book 
columns of our great American press. 

It is such generous minds as yours that have kept 
me writing. I should have stopped long ago if I 
had not had them. 

Alice Morse Earle. 

It is impossible to give you a perfect pen picture of 
Breezy Meadows or of its mistress, Kate Sanborn, 
just as it is impossible to paint the tints of a glorious 
sunset stretching across the winter sky. Breezy 
Meadows is an ideal country home, and the mistress 
of it all is a grand woman — an honor to her sex, and 
a loyal friend. Her whole life seems to be devoted 
to making others happy, and a motto on one of the 
walls of the house expresses better than I can, her daily 
endeavour : 

"Let me, also, cheer a spot, 
Hidden field or garden grot, 
Place where passing souls may rest, 
On the way, and be their best." 

Barbara Galpin. 

As a lecturer, Miss Kate Sanborn is thoroughly 
unique. Whatever her topic, one is always sure there 



i86 Memories and Anecdotes 

will be wit and the subtlest humour in her discourse, 
bits of philosophy of life, and the most practical 
common sense, flashes of laughable personal history, 
and gems of scholarship. It is always certain that 
the lecture will be rendered in inimitably bright and 
cheery style that will enliven her audience, which, 
while laughing and applauding, will listen intently 
throughout. No wonder she is a favourite with 
lecture goers, for few can give them so delightful 
an evening as she. — Mary A. Livermore. 

There is only one Kate Sanborn. Her position as 
a lecturer is unique. In the selection and treatment 
of her themes she has no rival. She touches nothing 
that she does not enliven and adorn. Pathos and 
humour, wit and wisdom, anecdote and incident, the 
foibles, fancies, freaks, and fashions of the past and 
present, pen pictures of great men and famous women, 
illustrious poets and distinguished authors, enrich 
her writings, as if the ages had laid their wealth of 
love and learning at her feet, and bidden her help 
herself. With a discriminating and exacting taste, 
she has brought together, in book and lecture, the 
things that others have overlooked, or never found. 
She has been a kind of discoverer of thoughts and 
things in the by-paths of literature. She also under- 
stands "the art of putting things." But vastly 
more than the thought, style, and utterance is the 
striking personality of the writer herself. It is not 
enough to read the writings of Miss Sanborn, though 
you cannot help doing this. She must be heard, if 
one would know the secret of her power — subtle, 
magnetic, impossible of transfer to books. The 
"personal equation" is everything — the strong, gifted 



Sam Walter Foss 187 

woman putting her whole soul into the interpretation 
and transmission of her thought so that it may in- 
spire the hearts of those who listen; the power of 
self-radiation. It is not surprising that Miss San- 
born is everywhere greeted with enthusiasm when 
she speaks. — Arthur Little. 

Miss Kate Sanborn is one of the best qualified 
women in this country to lecture on literary themes. 
The daugher of a Dartmouth professor, she was 
cradled in literature, and has made it in a certain way 
the work of her life. There is nothing, however, of 
the pedantic about her. She is the embodiment of 
a woman's wit and humour; but her forte is a certain 
crisp and lively condensation of persons and qualities 
which carry a large amount of information under a 
captivating cloak of vivacious and confidential talk 
with her audience, rather than didactic statement. 
J. C. Croly, "Jenny June." 

One of the friends I miss most at the farm is 
Sam Walter Foss. He was the poet, philosopher, 
lecturer and "friend of man." His folk songs 
touched every heart and even the sombre vein 
lightened with pictures of hope and cheer. He was 
humorous and even funny, but in every line there 
is a dignity not often reached by writers of witty 
verse or prose. Mr. Foss was born in Candia, N. 
H., in June, 1858. Through his ancestor, Stephen 
Batcheller, he had kinship with Daniel Webster, 
John Greenleaf Whittier, and William Pitt 
Fessenden. 



1 88 Memories and Anecdotes 

Mr. Foss secured an interest in the Lynn Unions 
and it was while engaged in publishing that news- 
paper that he made the discovery that he could be 
a "funny man." The man having charge of the 
funny column left suddenly, and Mr. Foss decided 
to see what he could do in the way of writing some- 
thing humorous to fill the column. He had 
never done anything of this kind before, and was 
surprised and pleased to have some of his readers 
congratulate him on his new "funny man." He 
continued to write for this column and for a long 
time his identity was unknown, he being referred 
to simply as the "Lynn Union funny man. " His 
ability finally attracted the attention of Wolcott 
Balestier, the editor of Tit-Bits, who secured Mr. 
Foss's services for that paper. Before long he 
became connected with Puck, Judge, and several 
other New York periodicals, including the New 
York Sun. 

Mr. Foss's first book was published in 1894, 
and was entitled Back Country Poems and has 
passed through several editions. Whiffs from Wild 
Meadows issued in 1896 has been fully as suc- 
cessful. Later books are Dreams in Homespun, 
Songs of War and Peace, Songs of the Average 
Man. 

He had charge of the Public Library at Somer- 




SAM WALTER FOSS 



S. W. Foss as Poet 189 

ville, Massachusetts, and his influence in library 
matters extended all over New England. 

His poems are marked by simplicity. Most of 
his songs are written in New England dialect which 
he has used with unsurpassed effect. But this 
poetry was always of the simplest kind, of the 
appealing nature which reaches the heart. Of his 
work and his aim, he said in his first volume: 

"It is not the greatest singer 

Who tries the loftiest themes, 
He is the true joy bringer 

Who tells his simplest dreams. 
He is the greatest poet 

Who will renounce all art 
And take his heart and show it 

To any other heart; 
Who writes no learned riddle, 

But sings his simplest rune, 
Takes his heart-strings for a fiddle, 

And plays his easiest tune. " 

Mr. Foss always had to recite the following poem 
when he called at Breezy Meadows 

THE CONFESSIONS OF A LUNKHEAD 

I'm a lunkhead, an' I know it; 'taint no use to squirm 

an' talk, 
I'm a gump an' I'm a lunkhead, I'm a lummux, I'm 

a gawk, 



iQo Memories and Anecdotes 

An' I make this interduction so that all you folks can 

see 
An' understan' the natur' of the critter thet I be. 

I alius wobble w'en I walk, my j'ints are out er gear, 
My arms go fiappin' through the air, jest like an 

el'phunt's ear; 
An' when the womem speaks to me I stutter an' grow 

weak, 
A big frog rises in my throat, an' he won't let me speak. 

Wall, that's the kind er thing I be; but in our neigh- 
borhood 

Lived young Joe Craig an' young Jim Stump an' 
Hiram Underwood. 

We growed like corn in the same hill, jest like four 
sep'rit stalks; 

For they wuz lunkheads, jest like me, an' lummuxes 
and gawks. 

Now, I knew I wuz a lunkhead ; but them fellers didn't 

know. 
Thought they wuz the biggest punkins an' the purtiest 

in the row. 
An' I, I uster laff an' say, "Them lunkhead chaps will 

see 
W'en they go out into the worl' w'at gawky things 

they be." 

Joe Craig was a lunkhead, but it didn't get through his 

pate; 
I guess you all heerd tell of him — he's governor of the 

state; 



Confessions of a Lunkhead 191 

Jim Stiimp, he blundered ofE to war — a most un- 
common gump — 

Didn't know enough to know it — 'an he came home 
General Stump. 

Then Hiram Underwood went off, the bigges' gawk of 
all, 

We hardly thought him bright enough to share in 
Adam's fall; 

But he tried the railroad biz'ness, an' he alius grabbed 
his share, — 

Now this gawk, who didn't know it, is a fifty million- 
aire. 

An' often out here hoein' I set down atween the stalks, 
Thinkin' how we four together all were lummuxes an' 

gawks. 
All were gumps and lunkheads, only they didn't 

know, yer see; 
An' I ask, " If I hadn' known it, like them other fellers 

there, 
Today I might be settin' in the presidential chair." 

We all are lunkheads — don't get mad — an' lummuxes 

and gawks, 
But us poor chaps who know we be — we walk in 

humble walks. 
So, I say to all good lunkheads, "Keep yer own selves 

in the dark ; 
Don't own to reckernize the fact, an' you will make 

your mark. " 

Next is the poem which is most quoted and best 
known : 



192 Memories and Anecdotes 



THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD 

" He was a friend to man, and lived in a house by the side of 
the road." — Homer. 



There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 

In the peace of their self -content; 
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, 

In a fellowless firmament; 
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 

Where highways never ran ; — 
But let me live by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

Let me live in a house by the side of the road, 

Where the race of men go by — 
The men who are good and the men who are bad. 

As good and as bad as I. 
I would not sit in the scorner's seat, 

Or hurl the cynic's ban; — 
Let me live in a house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I see from my house by the side of the road, 

By the side of the highway of life, 
The men who press with the ardour of hope, 

The men who are faint with the strife. 
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears- 

Both parts of an infinite plan; — 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead 
And mountains of wearisome height; 



MacQueen's Tribute to Foss 193 

That the road passes on through the long afternoon 

And stretches away to the night. 
But still I rejoice when the travellers rejoice, 

And weep with the strangers that moan, 
Nor live in my house by the side of the road 

Like a man who dwells alone. 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

Where the race of men go by — 
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are 
strong, 

Wise, foolish — so am I. 
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat 

Or hurl the cynic's ban? — 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

Mr. Foss's attribution to Homer used as a motto 
preceding his poem, "The House by the Side of 
the Road," is, no doubt, his translation of a pas- 
sage from the Iliad, book vi., which, as done into 
English prose in the translation of Lang, Leaf and 
Myers, is as follows: 

Then Diomedes of the loud war-cry slew Axylos, 
Teuthranos' son that dwelt in stablished Arisbe, a 
man of substance dear to his fellows ; for his dwelling 
was by the road-side and he entertained all men. 

SAM WALTER FOSS 

Sam Walter Foss was a poet of gentle heart. His 
keen wit never had any sting. He has described our 
13 



194 Memories and Anecdotes 

Yankee folk with as clever humour as Bret Harte 
delineated Rocky Mountain life. Like Harte, Mr. 
Foss had no unkindness in his make-up. He told me 
that he never had received an anonymous letter in his 
life. 

Our American nation is wonderful in science and 
mechanical invention. It was the aim of Sam Walter 
Foss to immortalize the age of steel. "Harness all 
your rivers above the cataracts' brink, and then 
unharness man. " He told me he thought the subject 
of mechanics was as poetical as the song of the lark. 
" The Cosmos wrought for a billion years to make glad 
for a day, " reminds us of the most resonant periods of 
Tennyson. 

"The House by the Side of the Road, " is from a text 
of Homer. "The Lunkhead" shows Foss in his hap- 
piest mood : gently satirizing the foibles and harmless^ 
foolish fancies of his fellow-men. There is a haunt- 
ing misty tenderness in such a poem as "The Tree 
Lover." 

"Who loves a tree he loves the life 
i^That springs in flower and clover; 

He loves the love that gilds the cloud, 

And greens the April sod; 

He loves the wide beneficence, 

His soul takes hold of God. " 

We have too little love for the tender out-of-door 
nature. "The world is too much with us. " 

It was a loss to American life and letters, when Sam 
Walter Foss passed away from us at the height of his 
strong true manhood. Later he will be regarded as an 
eminent American. 



Peter MacQueen 195 

He was true to our age to the core. Whether he 
wrote of the gentle McKinley, the fighting Dewey, 
the ludicrous schoolboy, the "grand eternal fellows" 
that are coming to this world after we have left it — he 
was ever a weaver at the loom of highest thought. 
The world is not to be civilized and redeemed by the 
apostles of steel and brute force. Not the Hannibals 
and Csesars and Kaisers but the Shelleys, the Scotts, 
and the Fosses are our saviours. They will have a 
large part in the future of the world to heighten and 
brighten life and justify the ways of God to men. 

These and such as these are our consolation in life's 
thorny pathway. They keep alive in us the memory 
of our youth and many a jaded traveller as he listens 
to their music, sees again the apple blossoms falling 
around him in the twilight of some unforgotten 
spring. 

Peter MacQueen. 

Peter MacQueen was brought to my house years 
ago by a friend when he happened to be stationary 
for an hour, and he is certainly a unique and inter- 
esting character, a marvellous talker, reciter of 
Scotch ballads, a maker of epigrams, and a most 
unpractical, now-you-see-him and now-he's-a-far- 
away fellow. I remember his remark, "Break- 
fast is a fatal habit." It was not the 'breakfast 
to which he referred but to the gathering round a 
table at a stated hour, far too early, when not in a 
mood for society or for conversation. And again : 
*'I have decided never to marry. A poor girl is 



196 Memories and Anecdotes 

a burden; a rich girl a boss. " But you never can 
tell. He is now a Benedict. 

I wrote to Mr. MacQueen lately for some of his 
press notices, and a few of the names which he 
called himself when I received his letters. 

My Dear Kate Sanborn : — Yours here and I has- 
ten to reply. Count Tolstoi remarked to me: "Your 
travels have been so vast and you have been with so 
many peoples and races, that an account of them would 
constitute a philosophy in itself. " 

Theodore Roosevelt said, "No other American 
has travelled over our new possessions more uni- 
versally, nor observed the conditions in them so 
quickly and sanely." 

Kennan was persona non grata to the Russians, 
especially after his visit to Siberia, but Mr. Mac- 
Queen was most cordially welcomed. 

What an odd scene at Tolstoi's table! The 
countess and her daughter in full evening dress with 
the display of jewels, and at the other end Tolstoi 
in the roughest sort of peasant dress and with bare 
feet. At dinner Count Tolstoi said to Mr. Mac- 
Queen : "If I had travelled as much as you have, 
I should today have had a broader philosophy. " 

Mr. MacQueen says of Russia : 

During the past one hundred years the empire of the 
Czar has made slow progress; but great bodies move 



Peter MacQueen i97 

slowly, and Russia is colossal. Two such republics 
as the United States with our great storm door called 
Alaska, could go into the Russian empire and yet 
leave room enough for Great Britain, Germany, and 
Austria. 

Journeys taken by Mr. MacQueen : 
1896 — to Athens and Greece. 
1897 — to Constantinople and Asia Minor. 
1898 — in the Santiago Campaign with the Rough 

Riders, and in Porto Rico with General 

Miles. 
1899 — with General Henry W. Lawton to the 

Philippines, returning through Japan. 
1900 — with DeWet, Delarey, and Botha in the 

Boer Army ; met Com Paul, etc. 
1 90 1 — to Russia and Siberia on pass from the Czar, 

visiting Tolstoi, etc. 
1902 — to Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, and Porto 

Rico. 
1903 — to Turkey, Macedonia, Servia, Hungary, 

Austria, etc. 
In the meantime Mr. MacQueen has visited 
every country in Europe, completing 240,000 miles 
in ten years, a distance equal to that which sepa- 
rates this earth from the moon. 

Last winter he was four months in the war zone, 
narrowly escaping arrest several times, and other 



198 Memories and Anecdotes 

serious dangers, as they thought him a spy with 
his camera and pictures. I gave a stag dinner for 
him just after his return from his war experiences, 
and the daily bulletins of war's horrors seemed 
dull reading after his stories. 

Here is an extract from a paper sent by Peter 
MacQueen from Iowa, where he long ago was in 
great demand as a lecturer, which contained several 
of the best anecdotes told by this irresistible racon- 
teur, which may be new to you, if not, read them 
again and then tell them yourself. 

Mr. MacQueen, who is to lecture at the Chautauqua 
here, has many strange stories and quaint yarns that 
he picked up while travelling around the globe. While 
in the highlands of Scotland he met a canny old ' ' Scot " 
who asked him, "Have you ever heard of Andrew 
Carnegie in America?" "Yes, indeed," replied the 
traveller. "Weel," said the Scot, pointing to a little 
stream near-by, "in that wee burn Andrew and I 
caught our first trout together. Andrew was a bare- 
footed, bareheaded, ragged wee callen, no muckle guid 
at onything. But he gaed off to America, and they 
say he's doin' real weel." 

While in the Philippines Mr. MacQueen was 
marching with some of the colored troops who 
have recently been dismissed by the* President. 
A big coloured soldier walking beside Mr. Mac- 
Queen had his white officer's rations and ammuni- 



Edwin C. Bolles 199 

tion and can-kit, carrying them in the hot tropical 
sun. The big fellow turned to the traveller and 
said: "Say, there, comrade, this yere White Man's 
Burden ain't all it's cracked up to be. " 

In the Boer war Mr. MacQueen, war correspondent 
and lecturer, tells of an Irish Brigade man from 
Chicago on Sani river. The correspondent was along 
with the Irish-Americans and saw them take a hill 
from a force of Yorkshire men very superior in num- 
bers. Mr. MacQueen also saw a green flag of Ireland 
in the British lines. Turning to his Irish friend, he 
remarked: "Isn't it a shame to see Irishmen fighting 
for the Queen, and Irishmen fighting for the Boers at 
the same time?" "Sorra the bit," replied his com- 
panion, "it wouldn't be a proper fight if there wasn't 
Irishmen on both sides. " 

Here's hoping that during Mr. MacQueen's long 
vacation from sermons, lectures, and tedious con- 
ventionalities in the outdoors of the darkest and 
deepest Africa, the wild beasts, including the 
man-eating tiger, may prove the correctness of 
Mrs. Seton Thompson's good words for them and 
only approach him to have their photos taken or 
amiably allow themselves to be shot. The canni- 
bals will decide he is too thin and wiry for a really 
tempting meal. 

Doctor Edwin C. Bolles has been for fifteen 
years on the Faculty of Tufts College, Massachu- 



200 Memories and Anecdotes 

setts, and still continues active service at the age 
of seventy-eight. 

His history courses are among the popular ones 
in the curriculum, and his five minutes' daily talks 
in Chapel have won the admiration of the entire 
College. 

He was for forty-five years in active pastoral 
service in the Universalist ministry ; was Professor 
of Microscopy for three years at St. Lawrence 
University. Doctor BoUes was one of the pioneers 
in the lecture field and both prominent and 
popular in this line, and the first in the use of illus- 
trations by the stereopticon in travel lectures. 

The perfection of the use of microscopic pro- 
jection which has done so much for the populariza- 
tion of science was one of his exploits. 

For several years his eyesight has been failing, 
an affliction which he has borne with Christian 
courage and cheerfulness and keeps right on at 
his beloved work. 

He has been devoted to photography in which 
avocation he has been most successful. His wife 
told me they were glad to accept his call to New 
York as he had almost filled every room in their 
house with his various collections. "One can ap- 
preciate this when he sees a card displayed on the 
door of Doctor BoUes's sanctum bearing this motto : 



Golden Rod and Aster 201 

"A man is known by the Trumpery he keeps. " 
He has received many honorary degrees, but 
his present triumph over what would crush the 
ambition of most men is greater than all else. 

Exquisite nonsense is a rare thing, but when 
found how delicious it is ! I found a letter from a 
reverend friend who might be an American Sidney 
Smith if he chose, and I am going to let you enjoy 
it; it was written years ago. 

Speaking of the "Purple and Gold," he says: 

I should make also better acknowledgments than 
my thanks. But what can I do? My volume on The 
Millimetric Study of the Tail of the Greek Delta, in the 
MSS. of the Sixth Century, is entirely out of print ; and 
until its re-issue by the Seaside Library I cannot for- 
ward a copy. Then my essay, "Infantile Diseases of 
the Earthworm" is in Berlin for translation, as it is 
to be issued at the same time in Germany and the 
United States. ' ' The Moral Regeneration of the Rat," 
and " Intellectual Idiosyncracies of Twin Clams," are 
resting till I can get up my Sanscrit and Arabic, for 
I wish these researches to be exhaustive. 

He added two poems which I am not selfish 
enough to keep to myself. 

GOLDEN ROD 

O! Golden Rod! Thou garish, gorgeous gush 
Of passion that consumes hot siunmer's heart ! 



202 Memories and Anecdotes 

O ! yellowest yolk of love ! in yearly hush 

I stand, awe sobered, at thy burning bush 
Of Glory, glossed with lustrous and illustrious art, 
And moan, why poor, so poor in purse and brain 
I am. 
While thou into thy trusting treasury dost seem to 
cram 
Australia, California, Sinai and Siam. 

And the other such a capital burlesque of the 
modern English School with its unintelligible 
parentheses : 

ASTER 

I kissed her all day on her red, red mouth 

(Cats, cradles and trilobites ! Love is the master !) 

Too utterly torrid, a sweet, spicy South 
(Of compositae, fairest the Aster.) 

Stars shone on our kisses — the moon blushed warm 
(Ursa major or minor, Pollux and Castor!) 

How long the homeward ! And where was my arm ?) 
(Crushed, crushed at her waist was the Aster !) 

No one kisses me now — ^my winter has come : 

(To ice turns fortune when once you have passed 
her.) 

I long for the angels to beckon me home (hum) 
(For dead, deader, deadest, the Aster!) 

Doctor Bolies has very kindly sent me one of his 
later humorous poems. A tragic forecast of 
suffragette rule which is too gloomy, as almost 



A Short Poem by Dr. Bolles 203 

every woman will assure an agreeable smoker that 
she is "fond of the odour of a good cigar. " 

DESCENSUS AD INFERNUM 

When the last cigar is smoked and the box is splintered 

and gone, 
And only the faintest whiff of the dear old smell hangs 

on, 
In the times when he's idle or thoughtful, 
When he's lonesome, jolly or blue. 
And he fingers his useless matches. 
What is a poor fellow to do ? 

For the suffragettes have conquered, and their harvest 
is gathered in ; 

From Texas to Maine they've voted tobacco the dead- 
liest sin; 

A pipe sends you up for a year, a cigarette for two ; 

In this female republic of virtue, 

What is a poor fellow to do ? 

He may train up his reason on bridge and riot on 

afternoon tea. 
And at dinner, all wineless and proper, a dress-suited 

guest he may be; 
But when the mild cheese has been passed, and the 

chocolate mint drops are few, 
And the coffee comes in and he hankers, 
What is a poor fellow to do? 

It's all for his good, they say ; for in heaven no nicotine 

grows. 
And the angels need no cedar for moth-proofs to keep 

their clothes; 



204 Memories and Anecdotes 

No ashes are dropped, no carpets are singed, by all the 

saintly crew; 
If this is heaven, and he gets there, 
What is a poor fellow to do ? 

He'll sit on the golden benches and long for a chance to 

break jail, 
With a shooting-star for a motor, or a flight on a 

comet's tail ; 
He'll see the smoke rise in the distance, and goaded 

by memory's spell. 
He'll go back on the women who saved him, 
And ask for a ticket to Hell ! 

An exact description of the usual happenings at 
"Breezy " in the beginning, by my only sister, Mrs. 
Babcock, who was devoted to me and did more 
than anyone to help to develop the Farm. I feel 
that this chapter must be the richer for two of her 
poems. 

LIGHT AND SHADE AT "BREEZY MEADOWS" FARM 

This charming May morning we'll walk to the grove ! 

And give the dear dogs all a run; 
Over the meadows 'tis pleasant to rove 

And bask in the light of the sun. 

Last night a sly fox took off our best duck ! 

Run for a gun ! there a hen hawk flies ! 
We always have the very worst of luck. 

The anxious mistress of the chickens cries. 




PADDLING IN CHICKEN BROOK 



Breezy Meadows Farm 205 

We stop to smell the lilacs at the gate, 

And watch the bluebirds in the elm-tree's crest — 

The finest farm it is in all the state, 
Which corner of it do you like the best ? 

Just think! a rat has eaten ducklings two, 
Now isn't that a shame! pray set a trap! 

The downiest, dearest ones that ever grew, 
I think this trouble will climax cap ! 

At "Sun Flower Rock, " in joy we stand to gaze; 

The distant orchard, flowering, show so fair: 
Surely my dear, abandoned farming pays. 

How heavenly the early morning air! 

Now only see ! those horrid hens are scratching ! 

They tear the Mountain Fringe so lately set! 
Some kind of mischief they are always hatching, 

Why did I ever try a hen to pet ? 

Here's "Mary's Circle," and the birches slender. 
And Columbine which grows the rocks between, 

Red blossoms showing in a regal splendour! 
We must be happy in this peaceful scene. 

The puppies chew the woodbine and destroy 
The dainty branches sprouting on the wall ! 

How can the little wretches so annoy? 
There's Solomon Alphonzo — worst of all! 

Now we will go to breakfast — milk and cream, 
Eggs from the farm, surely it is a treat ! 

How horrid city markets really seem 

When one can have fresh things like these to eat 1 



2o6 Memories and Anecdotes 

What? Nickodee has taken all the hash? 

And smashed the dish which lies upon the floor! 
I thought just now I heard a sudden crash! 

And it was he who slammed the kitchen door ! 

By "Scare Crow Road" we take our winding way, 

Tiger and Jerry in the pasture feed. 
See, Mary, — ^what a splendid crop of hay! 

Now, don't you feel that this is joy indeed? 

The incubator chickens all are dead ! 

Max fights with Shep, he scorns to follow me! 
Some fresh disaster momently I dread ; 

Is that a skunk approaching? — try to see! 

Come Snip and Snap and give us song and dance! 

We'll have a fire and read the choicest books, 
While the black horses waiting, paw and prance! 

And see how calm and sweet all nature looks. 

So goes the day; the peaceful landscape smiles; 

At times the live stock seems to take a rest. 
But fills our hearts with worry other whiles ! 

We think each separate creature is possessed ! 

Mary W. Babcock. 

the old woman 

The little old woman, who wove and who spun, 
Who sewed and who baked, did she have any fun? 

In housewifely arts with her neighbour she'd vie, 
Her triumph a turkey, her pleasure a pie1 

She milked and she churned, and the chickens she fed, 
She made tallow dips, and she moulded the bread. 



The Old Woman 207 

No club day annoyed her, no program perplext, 
No themes for discussion her calm slumber vexed. 

By birth D. A. R. or Colonial Dame, 

She sought for no record to blazon her fame — 

No Swamies she knew, she cherished no fad, 
Of healing by science, no knowledge she had. 

She anointed with goose grease, she gave castor oil. 
Strong sons and fair daughters rewarded her toil. 

She studied child nature direct from the child, 
And she spared not the rod, though her manner was 
mild. 

All honour be paid her, this heroine true. 

She laid the foundation for things we call new! 

Her hand was so strong, and her brain was so steady, 
That for the New Woman she made the world ready. 

Mary W. Babcock. 

Here is one of the several parodies written by 
my brother while interned in a log camp in the 
woods of New Brunswick, during a severe day's 
deluge of rain. It was at the time when Peary 
had recently reached the North Pole, and Dr. 
Cook had reported his remarkable observations 
of purple snows : 

don't you hear the north a-callin' ? 

Ship me somewhere north o' nowhere, where the 
worst is like the best ; 



2o8 Memories and Anecdotes 

Where there aren't no p'ints o' compass, an' a man can 

get a rest ; 
Where a breeze is like a blizzard, an' the weather at its 

best ; 
Dogs and Huskies does the workin' and the Devil 

does the rest. 

On the way to BaflSn's Bay, 
Where the seal and walrus play, 
And the day is slow a-comin', slower 
Still to go away. 

There I seen a walrus baskin' — bloomin' blubber to 

the good; 
Could I 'it 'im for the askin'? Well — I missed 'im 

where he stood. 
Ship me up there, north o' nowhere, where the best is 

like the worst ; 
Where there aren't no p'ints o' compass, and the last 

one gets there first. 

Take me back to Baffin's Bay, 
Where the seal and walrus play ; 
And the night is long a-comin', when it 
Comes, it comes to stay. 

THE WOMAN WITH THE BROOM 

A Mate for "The Man With The Hoe." 
(Written after seeing a farmer's wife cleaning house.) 

Bowed by the cares of cleaning house she leans 
Upon her broom and gazes through the dust. 



The Woman with the Broom 209 

A wilderness of wrinkles on her face, 
And on her head a knob of wispy hair. 
Who made her slave to sweeping and to soap, 
A thing that smiles not and that never rests, 
Stanchioned in stall, a sister to the cow? 
Who loosened and made shrill this angled jaw? 
Who dowered this narrowed chest for blowing up 
Of sluggish men-folks and their morning fire? 

Is this the thing you made a bride and brought 

To have dominion over hearth and home, 

To scour the stairs and search the bin for flour, 

To bear the burden of maternity ? 

Is this the wife they wove who framed our law 

And pillared a bright land on smiling homes? 

Down all the stretch of street to the last house 

There is no shape more angular than hers. 

More tongued with gabble of her neighbours' deeds, 

More filled with nerve-ache and rheumatic twinge, 

More fraught with menace of the frying-pan. 

O Lords and Masters in our happy land, 
How with this woman will you make account, 
How answer her shrill question in that hour 
When whirlwinds of such women shake the polls, 
Heedless of every precedent and creed. 
Straight in hysteric haste to right all wrongs? 
How will it be with cant of politics. 
With king of trade and legislative boss, 
With cobwebs of hypocrisy and greed. 
When she shall take the ballot for her broom 
And sweep away the dust of centuries? 

Edward W. Sanborn. 
14 



210 Memories and Anecdotes 

NEW HAMPSHIRE DAUGHTERS 

New Hampshire Daughters meet tonight 
With joy each cup is brimmin' ; 

We've heard for years about her men, 
But why leave out her wimmin? 

In early days they did their share 

To git the state to goin', 
And when their husbands went to war, 

Could fight or take to hoein'. 

They bore privations with a smile, ^ 

Raised families surprisin', 
Six boys, nine gals, with twins thrown in, 

O, they were enterprisin'. 

Yet naught is found their deeds to praise 

In any book of hist'ry, 
The brothers wrote about themselves. 

And — well, that solves the myst'ry. 

But now our women take their place 

In pulpit, court, and college, 
As doctors, teachers, orators. 

They equal men in knowledge. 

And when another history's writ 
Of what New Hampshire's done, 

The women all will get their due, 
But not a single son. 

But no, on sober second thought, 

We lead, not pose as martyrs, 
We'll give fair credit to her sons. 

But not forget her Darters. 

Kate Sanborn. 



A Turkey Dinner 211 

A little of my (not doggerel) but pupperell to 
complete the family trio. 

Answer to an artist friend who begged for a 
"Turkey dinner." 

Delighted to welcome you dear; 

But you can't have a Turkey dinner! 
Those fowls are my friends — ^live here: 

To eat, not be eat, you sinner! 

I like their limping, primping mien, 

I like their raucous gobble; 
I like the lordly tail outspread, 

I like their awkward hobble. 

Yes, Turkey is my favourite meat, ' 

Hot, cold, or rechauff^e; 
*But my own must stay, and eat and eat; 

You may paint 'em, and so take away. 

Kate Sanborn. 

spring in winter 

A Memory of "Breezy Meadows" 

'Twas winter— and bleakly and bitterly came 
The winds o'er the meads you so breezily name; 
And what tho' the sun in the heavens was bright, 
'Twas lacking in heat altho' lavish in light. 
And cold were the guests who drew up to your door. 
But lo, when they entered 'twas winter no more! 

* Metre adapted to the peculiar feet of this bird. 



212 Memories and Anecdotes 

Without, it might freeze, and without, it might storm, 
Within, there was welcome all glowing and warm. 
And oh, but the warmth in the hostess's eyes 
Made up for the lack of that same in the skies ! 
And fain is the poet such magic to sing: 
Without, it was winter — ^within, it was spring ! 

Yea, spring — ^for the charm of the house and its cheer 
Awoke in us dreams of the youth of the year ; 
And safe in your graciousness folded and furled, 
How far seemed the cold and the care of the world ! 
So strong was the spell that your magic could fling. 
We knew it was winter — ^we felt it was spring ! 

Yea, spring — in the glow of your hearth and your 

board 
The springtime for us was revived and restored, 
And everyone blossomed, from hostess to guest. 
In story and sentiment, wisdom and jest; 
And even the bard like a robin must sing — 
And, sure, after that, who could doubt it was spring! 

Denis A. McCarthy. 
New Year's Day, 1909. 

Mr. McCarthy is associate editor of The Sacred 
Heart, Boston, and a most popular poet and lecturer. 

His dear little book, Voices from Erin, adorned 
with the Irish harp and the American shield 
fastened together by a series of true-love knots, 
is dedicated "To all who in their love for the new 
land have not forgotten the old." There is one 
of these poems which is always called for whenever 



Sweet is Tipperary in the Spring 213 

the author attends any public function where 
recitations are in order, and I do not wonder at 
its popularity, for it has the genuine Irish lilt 
and fascination : 

" Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring time of the 
year, 
When the hawthorn's whiter than the snow, 
When the feathered folk assemble and the air is all 
a-tremble 
With their singing and their winging to and fro; 
When queenly Slieve-na-mon puts her verdant vesture 
on, 
And smiles to hear the news the breezes bring ; 
When the sun begins to glance on the rivulets that 
dance ; 
Ah, sweet is Tipperary in the spring!" 

I have always wanted to write a poem about 
my own "Breezy" and the bunch of lilacs at the 
gate; but not being a poet I have had to keep 
wanting; but just repeating this gaily tripping tri- 
bute over and over, I suddenly seized my pencil and 
pad, and actually under the inspiration, imitated 
(at a distance) half of this first verse. 

How sweet to be at Breezy in the springtime of the 
year. 

With the lilacs all abloom at the gate, 
And everything so new, so jubilant, so dear. 

And every little bird is a-looking for his mate. 



214 Memories and Anecdotes 

There, don't you dare laugh! Perhaps an- 
other time I may swing into the exact rhythm. 

The Rev. WiUiam Rankin Duryea, late Pro- 
fessor at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, was 
before that appointment a clergyman in Jersey 
City. His wife told me that he once wrote some 
verses hoping to win a prize of several hundred 
dollars offered for the best poem on "Home." 
He dashed off one at a sitting, read it over, tore 
it up, and flung it in the waste basket. Then he 
proceeded to write something far more serious and 
impressive. This he sent to the committee of 
judges who were to choose the winner. It was 
never heard of. But his wife, who liked the 
rhythm of the despised jingle, took it from the 
waste basket, pieced it together, copied it, and sent 
it to the committee. It took the prize. And he 
showed me in his library, books he had long wanted 
to own, which he had purchased with this "prize 
money," writing in each "Bought for a Song." 



Dark is the night, and fitful and drearily 

Rushes the wind like the waves of the sea, 

Little care I as here I sing cheerily, 

Wife at my side and my baby on knee; 

King, King, crown me the King ! 

Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King. 




THE SWITCH 



The Kingdom of Home 215 



Flashes the firelight upon the dear faces 

Dearer and dearer as onward we go, 

Forces the shadow behind us and places 

Brightness around us with warmth in the glow • 

King, King, crown me the King ! 

Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King. 



Flashes the love-light increasing the glory. 

Beaming from bright eyes with warmth of the soul, 

Telling of trust and content the sweet story, 

Lifting the shadows that over us roll ; 

King, King, crown me the King! 

Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King. 



Richer than miser with perishing treasure, 
Served with a service no conquest could bring, 
Happy with fortune that words cannot measure, 
Light-hearted I on the hearthstone can sing, 
King, King, crown me the King ! 
Home is the Kingdom, and Love is the King. 

Wm. Rankin Duryea, D.D. 

Breezy Meadows, my heart's delight. I was 
so fortunate as to purchase it in a ten-minute 
interview with the homesick owner, who longed 
to return to Nebraska, and complained that there 
was not grass enough on the place to feed a donkey. 



2i6 Memories and Anecdotes 

I am sure this was not a personal allusion, as I saw 
the donkey and he did look forlorn. 

I was captivated by the big elms, all worthy of 
Dr. Holmes's wedding-ring, and looked no fur- 
ther, never dreaming of the great surprises in 
store for me. As, a natural pond of water lilies, 
some tinted with pink. These lilies bloom earlier 
and later than any others about here. 

An unusual variety of trees, hundreds of white 
birches greatly adding to the beauty of the place, 
growing in picturesque clumps of family groups 
and their white bark, especially white. 

Two granite quarries, the black and white, and 
an exquisite pink, and we drive daily over long 
stretches of solid rock, going down two or three 
hundred feet — But I shall never explore these for 
illusive wealth. 

A large chestnut grove through which my fore- 
man has made four excellent roads. Two fascinat- 
ing brooks, with forget-me-nots, blue-eyed and 
smiling in the water, and the brilliant cardinal- 
flower on the banks in the late autumn. 

From a profusion of wild flowers I especially 
remark the moccasin-flower or stemless lady's- 
slipper. 

My Nature's Garden says — "Because most peo- 
ple cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower 



My Wonderful Farm 217 

that seems too beautiful to be found outside a 
millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every 
year, until the picking of one in the deep forest 
where it must now hide, has become the event of 
a day's walk." Nearly 300 of this orchid were 
found in our wooded garden this season. 

In the early spring, several deer are seen cross- 
ing the field just a little distance from the house. 
They like to drink at the brooks and nip off the 
buds of the lilac trees. Foxes, alas, abound. 

Pheasants, quail, partridges are quite tame, 
perhaps because we feed them in winter. 

I found untold bushes of the blueberry and 
huckleberry, also enough cranberries in the swamp 
to supply our own table and sell some. Wild 
grape-vines festoon trees by the brooks. 

Barberries, a dozen bushes of these which are 
very decorative, and their fruit if skilfully mixed 
with raisins make a foreign-tasting and delicious 
conserve. 

We have the otter and mink, and wild ducks 
winter in our brooks. Large birds like the heron 
and rail appear but rarely; ugly looking and 
fierce. 

The hateful English sparrow has been so re- 
duced in numbers by sparrow traps that now they 
keep away and the bluebirds take their own 



21 8 Memories and Anecdotes 

boxes again. The place is a safe and happy haven 
for hosts of birds. 

I have a circle of houses for the martins and 
swallows and wires connecting them, where a deal 
of gossip goes on. 

The pigeons coo-oo-o on the barn roof and are 
occasionally utilized in a pie, good too ! 

"1 wonder how my great trees are coming on this 
summer." 

"Where are your trees, Sir?" said the divinity 
student. 

"Oh, all around about New England. I call all 
trees mine that I have put my wedding ring on, and I 
have as many tree-wives as Brigham Young has hu- 
man ones." "One set's as green as the other," ex- 
claimed a boarder, who has never been identified. 
"They're all Bloomers," — ^saidthe young fellow called 
John. (I should have rebuked this trifling with lan- 
guage, if our landlady's daughter had not asked me 
just then what I meant by putting my wedding-ring 
on a tree.) "Why, measuring it with my thirty-foot 
tape, my dear, said I, — I have worn a tape almost out 
on the rough barks of our old New England elms and 
other big trees. Don't you want to hear me talk 
trees a little now? That is one of my specialties." 

"What makes a first-class elm?" 

"Why, size, in the first place, and chiefly anything 
over twenty feet clear girth five feet above the ground 
and with a spread of branches a hundred feet across 
may claim that title, according to my scale. All of 
them, with the questionable exception of the Spring- 




GRAND ELM 

(over two hundred years old) 



The Call of Summer 219 

field tree above referred to, stop, so far as my expe- 
rience goes, at about twenty-two or twenty-three feet 
of girth and a hundred and twenty of spread." 

Three of my big elms easily stand the test Dr. 
Holmes prescribed, and seem to spread themselves 
since being assured that they are worthy of one 
of his wedding-rings if he were alive, and soon 
there will be other applicants in younger elms. 

I am pleased that my memory has brought be- 
fore me so unerringly the pleasant pictures of the 
past. But my agreeable task is completed. 

The humming-birds have come on this fifteenth 
of July to sip at early mom the nectar from the 
blossoms of the trumpet-vine, now beginning its 
brilliant display. That is always a signal for me 
to drop all indoor engagements and from this time, 
the high noon of midsummer fascinations, to keep 
out of doors enjoying to the full the ever-changing 
glories of Nature, until the annual Miracle Play 
of the Transfiguration of the Trees. 



THE END 



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